Jazz's Boys
by Carlough
Summary: They were mechs of myth, the eilte, the most deep cover soldiers the army had. Too bad they were also the biggest pack of idiots ever to grace the Autobot ranks. They were trusted to get top secret information why? And Soundwave is curious about them...
1. Clubbing

**Note: I've been trying to upload this for days now! Stupid Document Manager.**

**This was an idea that's been floating around my head for a while, and I finally decided to write it out. This does contain OCs, but that's because it's supposed to be what happens in the background of the canon, if that makes sense. After all, special operations must get their info from somewhere, so this is my idea about the mechs who have to go out and get it. Consider this to be pre-Earth. I know that Cybertronians would have a term for "boys", so imagine that they're saying it in Cybertronian. In fact, this would all be in Cybertronian, so it doesn't really matter. This will stay a one-shot unless someone really wants to see more, but for now I'm listing it as complete.**

**Warning!: This is listed as teen as there is no explicit content. There are some adult themes and sexual references as well as slash. If any of this offends you, don't read. You have been warned.**

- blah- **Com. link**

_blah_ - **Flashback or Thoughts, occasionally**

**Disclaimer:**** I don't own Transformers or any of its characters. I do own Stryker, Pyro, and Ice Blink.**

* * *

Every good special operations bot has their sources. After all, they need to stay on the up and up without actually going out and gathering that information themselves. They don't have time to run around and do things themselves, so they have sources to get their information for them.

However, not all sources are snitches. No, sometimes special operations will actually employ soldiers for the sole purpose of getting out into the field and gathering information.

These are the most unknown, unheard of mechs to ever exist in the Autobot ranks. They're the deep cover agents, the best kept secret of the Autobot third-in-command. After all, not even Optimus Prime himself knows of their existence.

They are but a rumor, a myth passed from soldier to soldier, a small worry in the back of a Decepticon's processor that maybe, just maybe, the partner that they're on patrol with _right now_ is one of them, one of the fabled elite, one of Jazz's Boys.

As with most stories, that of Jazz's Boys had been embellished a lot over time, as each mech who told the stories added to them, improved them, and made them grander and more suspenseful. Oh, if they only knew that some of their greatest heroes were not actually a legion of highly trained super-spies, but a trio of absolute idiots.

While Jazz would neither confirm nor deny that he had a group of such mechs working directly under him as undercover Autobot spies, it was true that the group existed. It just wasn't as impressive as everyone thought. They were awkward, and they were obnoxious, and at times they made the TIC want to beat his head against the wall, but they got the job done and they did it right. Jazz needed them to get him all of the latest information through whatever means necessary, and they did, even if they really, really, _really_ didn't want to.

"I am NOT getting it on with a Decepticon for you!" the short black mech screamed, waving his servos in the air for emphasis.

"None of us is 'getting it on' with anybody!" their leader exclaimed exasperatedly.

"Don't I know it," the black mech muttered darkly, crossing his arms.

"Hey, if you have a 'Con's sparkling, can we keep it?" the white mech asked his black colored twin, aggravating him further.

"Ice Blink, cut it out!" Stryker commanded, using his height to tower over the small white twin imposingly. Ice Blink ignored him.

"So what would we do with it?" he asked, goading his twin on. "We could get it a little collar, and ooh maybe we could train it to behave like a good little 'Con, or-"

"I am NOT having 'Con spawn!" Pyro shouted in his twin's faceplates. Ice Blink smiled back serenely.

The tall green form of Stryker glared at the pair. "Both of you shut it, or so help me Primus, I'll-"

A slight cough-like sound came from behind them, causing the trio to turn towards the video screen once again, where their superior was watching them with a small, amused smile.

"Sorry, Jazz," they all muttered like the thoroughly chastised sparklings that they were.

"Yeah, well, as I was saying, I need you three to check the place out. 'Cons and some rough n' tumble neutrals frequent the place, and from what I've heard some of the 'Cons there are involved in the construction of a new Decepticon base. I need you to get in there and find out if there really is a new base in the makings. If there is, then you need to get all the info you can on it. The location is key. Remember, _any means necessary_." He looked at the trio meaningfully.

"Are you seriously implying that you want us to give _lap dances_ to Decepticons?!" Even Stryker, Jazz's ever-loyal second couldn't quite believe what his superior was asking of them.

"Well, if that's what you gotta do..." Jazz smirked at them devilishly, visor flashing.

"I hate you," Pyro stated bluntly, blue optics narrowed in supreme annoyance.

"Pyro," Stryker growled in warning.

"Seriously, we don't get paid nearly enough for this slag!" Pyro exclaimed.

Jazz only laughed. They may have been a pack of inept idiots, but they were _his_ pack of inept idiots and he'd chosen them for a reason. He really didn't mind the cursing, or the back-sass or even the insults to himself. Not many mechs worked directly under Jazz, so most didn't know that Jazz was much more lenient with his soldiers than others would be, including allowing them to treat him as if he was "one of the gang" and not their superior. In fact, he appreciated it.

Cutting off Pyro's torrent of swearing, Jazz said, "I sent you a chip with the coordinates on it. And this time, guys, just find a way of disposing of it so there's no evidence. When I said to eat it last time, I was joking." Everyone looked at Ice Blink.

"Well how was I supposed to know you were kidding?!" the white twin complained, pouting. "If you didn't mean it, you shouldn't have said it."

"Yeah, well I'm not getting the thing out of you if you swallow it this time," Pyro told his twin. Stryker nodded in agreement.

_"Ow, Ow, OWWWW!!!"_

_"You dumbaft fragger, stay still!" Pyro shouted. "Stryke, keep him down!"_

_"I'm trying!" the green mech said from his position atop his white subordinate, basically laying on him in an attempt to minimize his thrashing._

_Pyro's servo was shoved deep in his brother's circuitry, twisting around as he felt for the chip that his slagger of a brother had actually swallowed._

_"Ow – couldn't you – PRIMUS – move a little – slag it – slower – you pit-spawned glitch slagger?!" Ice Blink did not slow in his movements, extremely uncomfortable at having his completely-untrained-in-any-medical-field twin shoving his servo around in his innards in an attempt to remove the chip he'd swallowed that his tanks apparently could not break down or process, so it had to be forcefully removed to prevent any damage. Well his brother was doing most of the damage right now!_

_"If I moved any slower it would be called torture!" the black mech snarled._

All mechs present shuddered at the memory.

"In other news, you're seriously planning on having us get it on with some 'Cons?" Ice Blink asked with wide, supposedly innocent blue optics.

"I already told you, I ain't getting it on with a 'Con and that's final!" Pyro was one of those who subscribed to the idea that "If you say it enough times, it will be true."

"Stop saying that!" Stryker admonished his team.

Jazz sighed. "Sparking with the Decepticons and anyone else will not be necessary unless you really, really want to, in which case, I want details. But really, none of you has to spark with anybody, okay?"

"Better not have to," Pyro grumbled, always needing to have the last word.

"So how's Prowl?" Ice Blink asked their superior in a light, happy tone, as if none of the previous conversation had occurred.

"Prowlie's good. Still overworking himself, but he's good."

"None of us have ever even met Prowl," Pyro admonished his brother, smacking him upside his helm.

"That doesn't mean that we have to be impolite and not ask," Ice Blink sniffed.

"Yeah Snowflake, 'cause you're sure known for your manners," Jazz chuckled, using one of his many nicknames for his team members.

"You know it!" the white mech commented brightly.

"Uh-huh. Well, is that all then, Captain Jazztastic?" Stryker asked. After Jazz began calling them odd, obscure nicknames, they'd felt the need to come up with a few of their own for him.

"Yep, Big Guy, that's it. Try not to get yourself too slagged, you hear me?"

"Apparently were getting slagged in a different way than you're talking about." Ice waggled his optic ridges suggestively. Both Stryker and Pyro smacked his helm this time.

"'Kay, I gotta go boys, I'm due for a meeting with Prime soon," Jazz said. "See ya!" With that, the feed cut out.

"So are we gonna get it on with some 'Cons?" Pyro asked quietly after a few moments of silence.

Sighing in defeat, their leader said, "That is _exactly_ what we're going to do. Now c'mon, we have to find some way to make you two afts look attractive by tonight."

"I am attractive!" Ice Blink shouted.

"We all know that I'm the better looking twin," Pyro said, pushing past his brother.

"Are not!" Ice punched his brother in the arm, and soon they were in a full out brawl worthy of the nefarious twin terrors that Jazz had told them about.

Stryker sighed. They had a lot of work to do if they wanted to be ready for that night.

_Later that orn_

The trio stood outside of what was, in human terms, a strip club. A strip club for freaking huge robots, but a strip club nonetheless. How do giant robots strip? By wearing less armor, of course! A human wouldn't notice the difference, but to a Cybertronian it was a very promiscuous thing to do.

They were waiting in line with some seedy looking mechs who kept staring at them lustfully. Well, that's what they were going for, but it didn't make them feel any better. Stryker had to keep stepping on Pyro's pede to keep him from growling at passersby.

Once they finally reached the front of the line, which wasn't very long because it was early in the orn for most patrons, they put their plan into action. Step one: Infiltrate the premises.

"Hi," Stryker said in a bright tone, pasting on an airy smile. "We're just passing through the area for the night, and we're in need of a few extra credits. Do you think we could work here for the night, maybe?"

Stryker had to keep from gagging as he put on the act, subtly sliding his servo down his own chassis, knowing that the mech at the door was watching him. The trio was always undercover, so they never wore symbols of the Autobot faction, though occasionally they'd wear the Decepticon symbol if the mission necessitated it.

Tonight they'd had to clean and polish their armor, as well as remove all of the bulkier pieces intended for battle. All of them had a few weapons hidden internally, but Stryker still felt lost without the comforting weight of his cannon on his arm. He really wanted to use it on the mech who was feeling him up with his optics.

"I might be able to fit you in," the mech all but purred. Stryke's tanks churned in disgust at what he was doing. "Let me go get the boss."

The mech left and Stryker sent a look to his own subordinates, one reminding them that they couldn't mess this up. He soon returned, bringing with him a foul smelling mech with a greedy look in his optics. Once again Pyro was barely stopped from growling.

"Yeah, we could use them," he agreed, looking at the three as if they were property. "You two twins?" he asked the monochromatic mechs. The nodded, putting on fake smiles for him.

"Good. A lot of the patrons like twins." They were doing all that they could to keep from shuddering. Or purging their tanks, either one was a distinct possibility at the moment.

"Some of them like the bigger ones, too," he commented, apparently referring to Stryker's height. "Most of my dancers are on the smaller side. They'll do," he said to his bouncer. To the trio, he said, "Follow me. I'll tell you how things work here."

The three followed after the club owner, sticking together as they looked around warily. Strobe lights flashed and the odor of cheap high-grade energon permeated the air. All around them mechs were gyrating and groping in some sorry excuse for dancing.

"Okay, here's how things work. If a mech asks you, they can pay for a dance. They may give the credits to you, but once you're done the credits go directly to the bartender, got it? The longer the dance, the higher the cost. Prices are posted at the bar and on the wall. You keep any tips you get and you'll receive a cut of the profits at the end of the night. Sound good?" The group nodded, not being able to do anything else.

"If a mech wants more than just a dance, well, that's your choice. Back rooms are free for just that purpose. If you don't want to get involved in that, politely decline. If they hassle you, find the bartender or a bouncer or come to me. No one hassles my dancers. Any questions?" They shook their heads now, and they were turned loose.

"What do we do now?" Pyro hissed to their leader.

"Wait until one of the guys we're looking for shows up, I guess," he replied. Along with the coordinates of the club, Jazz had sent them images of some of the mechs they were looking for who may have ideas about this new base.

"But what do we do right now?" the black mech pressed.

"We dance!" Ice Blink said happily, already moving and twisting to the beat.

"You are an idiot," his brother scorned, but he allowed his twin to pull him towards him, dancing together. Next to them Stryker moved slightly, enough to look like he was dancing while he scanned the room for their targets.

Loud laughter could be heard from the entrance as a large group of mechs came in. All were sporting the Decepticon symbol.

"I think we've found our guys," Stryker murmured to the twins, who nodded subtly in return. "Let's get to work, boys."

Ice Blink wriggled his optic ridges, and Stryker had to keep from living up to his designation.

The group of Decepticons sat on some expensive looking lounges that were really worth much less than they appeared to be. They already appeared to be overcharged, but they were still ordering more high-grade.

_All the better for us,_ Stryker thought. The more overcharged they were, the more information they may be willing to give up.

The rowdy group of 'Cons were calling at the mechs around them, checking out the night's "pickings". The trio moved over to them, trying to gain the attention of the 'Cons. It didn't take long for someone to call out the twins.

"Good luck," Stryker told the pair as they flounced off to the mech to do...unsavory things for him.

"Hey," one of the dancers said, tapping Stryke on the arm. "That mech over there wants you." Surprised, Stryker turned to see who could have possibly asked for him. He almost fell over when he saw who it was.

Soundwave?! Soundwave, the Decepticon third in command and Communications Officer was here?! He was asking for _him_?! What was he even doing here? Everyone said that he didn't do things like go to strip clubs asking for lap dances. Why the Pit was he here, then?!

Wait, wasn't Soundwave telepathic? _Holy Primus, think of something stupid!_ He told himself, before singing along with the song lyrics playing in the club to keep from thinking about how he _shouldn't_ think of things.

"What can I do for you?" he asked the visored mech in a hopefully sultry tone. Instead of speaking, the mech handed him a chip with credits on it. Comparing the amount of credits to the sign on the wall, he calculated the amount of time he'd need to dance for and nodded, subspacing the chip. Hopefully the twins would have more luck than he would, because Soundwave didn't seem to be much of a talker and considering he was wearing a mouth guard, he didn't seem very inclined to ingest high-grade anytime soon.

Stryker began to dance, feeling like a dirty slagger the entire time as he practically pelvic thrusted the other mech in the faceplates. Inside, he was dying of shame and embarrassment, but he made sure that his surface thoughts were all light and happy, things that a normal dancer would think.

_Ooh, he's the third in command! I wonder if he tips well, then. He should; he gets paid enough._

_What's with the mouth guard? How's he supposed to drink energon with it on?_

_How much longer is this? Five breems? I guess I can deal with that._

_Ugh, everyone is staring at me. So they get to watch without paying, huh? Wonder how much admission is at the door. They should probably raise it._

_Ooh, I like this song!_

And so his thoughts continued, making him sound like a boring, insipid dancer. Jazz would be proud.

He thought he was doing a pretty good job, but he couldn't help but feel a small amount of pettiness because Soundwave wasn't showing any sort of reaction.

_Who asks for a dance and then just sits there?_ He thought as he trailed his servos down the cassette player's chassis.

"Statement: Your thoughts are a cover."

Stryker almost fell over in shock at the sudden monotone from the mech he was dancing for, spoken so quietly that he could barely hear it over the pounding music.

"How so?" he asked with an innocent and naive smile.

"Your thoughts: An attempt to hide true thoughts." It was a little unnerving that Soundwave's voice could be heard but there was no indication that he was speaking, given the mouth guard.

"It's not very nice to read other people's thoughts," Stryker pouted, though inside he was scrambling for a way to get out of this situation.

"Apology: Not given. Reason: Real thoughts are interesting."

Well that one threw him for a loop. Was he being...flirted with?

"Are you flirting with me?" He tried to sound like mechs flirted with him all the time, though in reality he was flattered and just a little touched. Even if it was from a no-good slag-eating 'Con.

"Your question: Ignored. Inquiry: Do you dislike the Decepticons?"

Stryke scrambled for an answer. "Um, it's not that I don't like them, it's just that, you know, the war, and-"

- Yo Boss, we got the info. Drunken slaggers, can't keep their mouths shut. Let's dump the credits at the bar and get the Pit outta here, huh? These dirty 'Cons got their filthy paws all over me. I want to get home and soak in some corrosive acid for an orn. Heh, even that probably won't get rid of the feeling. –

While Stryker was grateful for the com from Pyro that would allow them to get out of there, he really wished that it had come at a time when he _wasn't_ having his mind read against his will by a Communications Officer, especially one that was a Decepticon.

- Stryker, you coming? –

Soundwave was looking at him intently. Checking his internal chronometer, Stryke saw that his time was up, anyway.

Giving Soundwave a grin and a wink, he said, "Gotta go!" He hoped that Soundwave hadn't heard that message, he really hoped that he hadn't heard that message.

Meeting up with the twins, they dropped the credits at the bar and received their pay. The owner looked at them and said, "Shame you're leaving so early. Soundwave never takes a liking to the dancers." Stryker nodded like it was a real shame before the three left quickly, the twins chuckling the entire time.

Once they were well clear of the club, the twins broke out laughing, clutching at each other for support.

"Dude, you danced for _Soundwave_?" They found this idea absolutely hilarious.

"I'd stop laughing if I were you," Stryker said solemnly. "He was reading my mind and he was on to me. That's probably the only reason he had me dance; he knew we were up to something. I think he may have heard your messages to me, too. You better pray to Primus that he didn't – you said my real name there."

The twins soon sobered. They began making attempts to take their leader's mind off of their mishaps, knowing that he'd dwell on it, by regaling him with their own tale.

Apparently they'd ended up with some very overcharged Decepticons who didn't seem to understand the "Servos Off" policy. The one upside was that they'd just come from the construction site, and with a few purred questions they'd given the twins enough information to write a tell-all novel.

So basically, mission accomplished for Jazz's Boys. They'd have to have a talk with their superior about what was and wasn't acceptable to ask of your subordinates. Still, it was funny to be able to add "Strip Club Dancer" to their list of accomplishments and previous jobs, alongside geologists, accountants, missionaries of Primus, turbo-fox caretakers, sparkling-sitters, fighters in an illegal undergound ring, and poisoned-energon testers, among others. Still, they still never, ever, _ever_ wanted to do that again. _Ever_.

As Pyro had said, they _so_ weren't paid enough for this.

* * *

Soundwave sat in his chair, watching the tall green mech depart with some monochromatic twins.

_Stryker_, he mused to himself, remembering the name one of the twins had called the mech that they referred to as their "boss". _Who are you?_

* * *

**Well, now Soundwave knows something of Jazz's Boys, not that he realizes who they are. This didn't come out nearly as funny as I'd hoped. Oh well. I hope I got Soundwave-speak right. I didn't intend for this to come off as...romantic in any way, though I think it sort of did...and now I'm liking that direction... For now this is a one-shot but if you want to see more, tell me and I may continue. Otherwise, leaving a review would be nice.**


	2. Private Thoughts and Transmissions

**Well, everybody who cared to review said to add more, so here's some. We'll see if the story will continue depending on the response. As for a question as to why the strip club is called such, it's because I couldn't think of another term for it (if you have one, please share it) and also, because we're pretending here that they're saying things in a way that they would in Cybertronian, as stated in the first part.**

_**Kelly**_**: Very carefully! ;) Haha, no, it's just the term I chose to use and it involves less armor. Yes, Pyro is short for Pyromaniac, so he'd be the opposite of Ice Blink (get it? Twins, black and white, fire and ice, etc.?).**

- blah -** Com. Link**

**Disclaimer:**** I do not of Transformers or any of its characters, but I do own Stryker, Ice Blink and Pyro, and anyone who you don't know.**

* * *

Soundwave wandered to his quarters on the _Nemesis_, glad to finally be back. He had spent almost half a vorn supervising the Decepticons in charge of building their new base. Well, not so much supervising as following them around to make sure that they could hold their glossas about the secret project.

Making trips every orn to a club to be sure that they didn't tell any private information was not what Soundwave would call his "style". He had been bored stiff, considering that he disliked the kind of clubs that the base workers had favored. The music was terrible, full of loud, obnoxious base noise to draw the attention away from the pointless lyrics and atrocious singing. He also didn't enjoy the mechs and the few femmes who worked at the club "coming on" to him when he could obviously tell that they were only using him as a means for their next paycheck.

It wasn't like Soundwave was "waiting for love" or hanging onto any other pointless Autobot sentiment such as that, but if he planned on interfacing it would at least be with someone who could hold his interest for more than a nano-klik. Unfortunately for him, there were not many who could do that. Last orn, however, he'd found a mech who could.

A tall, bright green mech with a few black accents to his paintjob had been working at the club. Soundwave made it his hobby to scan over the CPUs of the club workers and patrons while he was there, both to look for potential threats and to amuse himself. His optics had landed on the green mech, who at the moment had been watching a pair of monochromatic twins dancing next to him. The twins weren't what interested him; no, it was the odd thoughts he was picking up from the green mech.

It wasn't that Soundwave couldn't hear the mech's thoughts – he could hear them very well, thanks much – but it was that the mech had an odd way of thinking. He was definitely on the defensive about something, and he was watching his surroundings warily, looking for a threat. Many mechs were cautious now, considering the war, but this mech was afraid about being caught for something. For what – well, that's what Soundwave had wanted to know. The mech's processors were moving quickly, constantly taking in his surroundings while pondering other thoughts in the back. Those thoughts were what Soundwave wanted to hear the most. Focusing, he picked up on one of them.

It was something about the base workers drinking a lot of high grade, and then: _All the better for us_.

Soundwave had been a little perplexed. Better? Better why? Was it because overcharged mechs would waste more credits on them? Or was it for other reasons?

He caught the tail end of a passing thought about getting information and decided that the green mech was definitely a priority and a possible threat to security. For that reason, he decided to call him over. He instructed a random worker to tell the mech for him, as it wasn't becoming or following decorum for an officer to have to attract a worker's attention themselves. The green mech was watching his companions depart when the other told him of Soundwave's request. That was when things got interesting.

_Soundwave?! Soundwave, the Decepticon third in command and Communications Officer is here?! He's asking for _me_?! What's he even doing here? Everyone says that he didn't do things like go to strip clubs asking for lap dances. Why the Pit is he here, then?!_

_...Wait, isn't Soundwave telepathic? Holy Primus, think of something stupid!_

The entire thing was befuddling to the telepath. It was also very, very suspicious. This one was most definitely up to something. Soundwave watched him walk over. The green mech looked confidant and cool, but his mind was reeling and nervous, though he put on a good show, giving the Decepticon a decidedly promiscuous grin to hide how upset he was at the entire prospect of what he was about to do. The level of fear the green mech felt was almost enough for Soundwave to stop him then and there and give up the act that they were both putting on. A stray thought from the green mech about not knowing what to do because he'd never been with someone _like that_ before made him want to tell the poor mech that he didn't have to do this, but there was a strong feeling of determination coming from the tall mech, the kind of determination that could not be dissuaded. With that determination clear in his processors, the green mech began to move his hips.

_Well_, Soundwave thought to himself candidly. _He's awfully good at this for not having ever been with another before._

A fact that most did not know: Soundwave did not think in monotone, nor did he always speak in it. Around his sparklings, for example, he allowed himself a certain amount of emotion and intonation to show his affection and trust. To his comrades, though, he always spoke in a monotone, to show his dedication to his post and his professionalism, and because he didn't want to allow his emotions to cloud his judgment. Just because he wasn't vocal about his emotions didn't mean that they didn't exist.

If he wasn't in such a public place, Soundwave would have laughed at the very loud thoughts his companion was projecting. Many mechs didn't realize it, but when they tried to think thoughts to cover up their true intent, they were more often than not "louder" and easier for a telepath the pick up, due to the mech's need for the telepath to believe their cover-thoughts. It made cover-thoughts very easy to detect, but he had yet to find cover-thoughts as amusing as the ones of the young mech who was dancing in front of him.

First it was a comment about tipping and the amount of credits that Soundwave was paid, and then a remark about drinking energon with a mouth guard on that he was sure was intended to be airheaded as to convince the Decepticon officer of his innocence and lack of suspicious activity. Next came a thought on how long his dance was for and a suggestion that the admission prices should be raised, followed by an exclamation about how much the mech liked the current song, which was some loud club tune, a version of a well known song with an added base, so distorted that it was impossible to tell the music from the base. The mech's feelings on the song were quite clearly against it, so Soundwave found it amusing that he would send out a thought about how he liked it. The again, Soundwave found the entire situation to be amusing. There was one thing that he wanted to know: what was this mech's designation?

The green mech was trailing black servos down the 'Con's chassis (which he would admit wasn't a sensation that he was adverse to), wondering why Soundwave had asked for a dance and then ignored his presence. At that the cassette player could no longer hold his glossa, and he pointed out to the green mech that he was aware of the mech's false thoughts, and that he found the true thoughts to be more interesting. This was meant to reference that he had been listening to the mech's earlier thoughts and had found them to be suspicious, but the green mech took this the entirely wrong way.

"Are you flirting with me?" he asked, confusion painting his faceplates. What? Where had _that_ come from? Replaying the conversation in his CPU, Soundwave soon realized that, to someone who hadn't been aware of the situation from his point of view, the comment would have been taken as a flirtatious one. Soundwave, ever unflappable, was at a loss as to what he should say. In the end he chose to ignore the question, even going so far as to tell the mech he was ignoring his question, and then asking if he disliked the Decepticons after hearing a wayward thought about "no-good slag-eating 'Cons", intending to find if this mech was perhaps some sort of rebel, or – Primus forbid – an Autobot.

The mech then became extremely uncomfortable and began to scramble for an answer, babbling all the while in a manner that Soundwave found to be oddly endearing, a sentiment which he promptly quashed. Mid-babble, things got _really_ interesting.

Soundwave, being not only a Communications Officer but also a telepath, easily intercepted the incoming com. that had been sent to the green mech, apparently coming from the black twin Soundwave had seen earlier.

- Yo Boss, we got the info. Drunken slaggers, can't keep their mouths shut. Let's dump the credits at the bar and get the Pit outta here, huh? These dirty 'Cons got their filthy paws all over me. I want to get home and soak in some corrosive acid for an orn. Heh, even that probably won't get rid of the feeling. –

Well wasn't that interesting. "Boss", that meant that the green mech was the leader of this group, and they were obviously after some sort of information. The green mech's anti-Decepticon thoughts added to the black mech's very obvious "dirty 'Cons" statement only cemented the idea that this group was against the Decepticons; probably some Autobot contingent after their base's plans. How they found out about the base in the first place, Soundwave had no idea, but he planned to find out.

The green mech's thoughts were torn between an intense, spark-shaking fear that was almost enough to make Soundwave's own spark ache sympathetically, and a sudden fury at his apparent comrade, most likely for blowing his cover.

- Stryker, you coming? –

Soundwave watched intently as the green mech, Stryker, apparently, looked around anxiously, and then winked at the Officer, grinning saucily and moving off to the bar, being met part way by the twins. Soon after, the trio left the club together, all moving with a swift precision that had definitely been trained into them.

So Stryker was the intriguing mech's designation, hmm? Well, Soundwave planned to find out who Stryker was and what he and his friends were up to, but first, he had to go pull those cassette twins of his out of a riveting and oh-so-dangerous game of cannon tag.

* * *

Jazz clicked off the video feed and sighed, looking at the dark screen in front of him. He'd had the wonderful privilege of informing his boys that more information on the new Decepticon base was needed, which had gained him an audio full from the trio, each in a vocal manner making it very clear about their feelings towards returning to the club. After the close call with Soundwave, the danger level of the place had greatly increased in the undercover 'Bot's optics. Jazz had agreed, stating that they would most likely not need to return to the club. However, infiltration of the worksite would be helpful, but the chances of being recognized while incognito were too high to risk. They would just have to break in the old fashioned way.

The TIC slumped in his chair, releasing air from his vents. The boys infiltrating the site wouldn't be too hard, considering that they had recently received word of Soundwave being spotted back on the _Nemesis_, away from the work site. The problem was Soundwave himself. The telepathic Decepticon had most likely heard the designation of Jazz's second in command and knew what all three of his operatives looked like. This was Not Good with capital letters. Deciding that a cube of energon and some good conversation might help him come up with an idea of where to go next with this predicament, the saboteur stood and left his office, not caring to lock his door in his state of contemplation.

This was the perfect opportunity for a pair of red and yellow mechs who had been passing by to snoop the way that they had always wanted to. Waiting until the third in command was well away from his office and using the knowledge that Inferno had just forced Red Alert to take an energon break, the twins made a mad dash for Jazz's office, utilizing this possibly one-time chance to find out if a few rumors were true. They had bets riding on some of those rumors.

Thanking Primus that no code was needed to access the unlocked door, the twins slipped inside the office, taking in the familiar surroundings and moving on, looking for any place that a Special Operations mech would hide his information. It would be tough, but they'd pulled off other supposedly impossible tasks before.

Sideswipe began rifling through datapads, looking for something interesting while remembering the exact order and positioning of each datapad as to not alert the TIC of their presence upon his return. Sunstreaker accessed the terminal that, unbeknownst to him, Jazz had just been using, shocked that it, too, had not been locked. That was very uncharacteristic if him; he must have had something extremely serious on his CPU.

The terminal's screen lit, and a small icon appeared in the corner - a message of some sort. Sunstreaker checked the area to be sure nobody could see but his twin, and then clicked on the icon. A message filled the screen, the grammar and spelling proving that it had been dictated and the program had turned it into text.

**Yo Jazzy, didn't wanna try callin' you again 'cause you said you had some stuff to get done. Anyways, we think we gotta way to get into the base; plans are attached for ya to check over. Boss is runnin' 'round here with my dumbaft twin, lookin' to see why ol' Sounders went runnin' back to the **_**Nemesis**_**. **

**That's 'bout all – oh yeah, we didn't get to tell ya before, but remember to turn off both your audio AND video feeds when you cut a call, 'cause we sure got a show when you n' Prowl started to get it on – that's right, I'm still sayin' it, Stryke be slagged – in front of the camera. Primus, I'm just happy that we didn't have to hear it, but really, you guys are kinda kinky. Still, you should've seen Strykey run, tryin' to figure how to turn off the feed from our end. It was somethin' to see, that's for sure. **

**M'kay, I'm out.**

'**Ro**

Sunstreaker reread the message, just to be sure he'd read it correctly, and then called his brother over. They read it again together, and then they looked each other in the optics and smiled deviously. This was it! This was their proof! Jazz's Boys had to exist; what else could this message mean? They copied the message to memory files, saving it away for proof later if others asked. Then, they turned their attention to the possible identities of the unknown mechs.

At least three unidentified mechs had been referenced: "Stryke" or "Strykey", "'Ro", who was the writer, and his apparent twin, only referred to as "my dumbaft twin". Twins weren't common, but they didn't have much to go on to locate a pair, especially if they were undercover.

"Hey, can't previous video feeds be played back?" Sideswipe asked absentmindedly. His twin stared at him in shock, and then his faceplates were split in a decidedly devilish and slightly proud smirk.

"Sides, for once, I'm proud to call you my twin." Turning back to the terminal, the yellow mech quickly navigated his way through the files, ignoring the sounds of his twin's protests about his statement. Scrolling through records of old video feeds, the yellow warrior was checking where every message had originated, trying to see if any of the addresses could possibly shed some light on their mystery. Most were signed from 'Bots they already knew, like some from Elita and her femmes, and a few from Mirage and some other Special Ops. mechs from when they'd been in the field. Nothing out of the ordinary until...

**Security Level: Maximum**

**Recipients Allowed to View: Autobot Jazz, Third in Command, Head of Special Operations Division**

Well, that looked promising. Sunstreaker tapped the terminal's controls, telling it to expand the information on the past transmission.

**Message Received: One joor ago**

**Subject: Decepticon Base**

**From: Autobot Stryker, First Lieutenant of Special Operations Division**

Stryker? That designation would fit the nicknames "Stryke" and "Strykey". But since when did Jazz have a First Lieutenant that no one knew about? It had always been assumed that it was Mirage, who was _a_ Lieutenant, but of what rank, no one was quite sure except for Jazz and the mech in question. Apparently, he was at least Second, but why would a First Lieutenant, a mech who would technically outrank the twins and a lot of mechs on the Ark, be in the field and unheard of?

Making sure that nobody was around once again, the duo shared a look and silently agreed that all the brig time in the world was worth seeing this and putting an end to the rumors once and for all. And, of course, winning all of the credits from the betting pool for being the first to have proof of Jazz's Boys.

They clicked an icon and played back the recorded transmission, which recorded audio and video from both sides of a conversation, making Jazz himself visible in a small box in the corner of the terminal's screen. The rest of the screen was filled with a view of a pair of monochromatic mechs in a fight with each other on the floor. A big green mech stepped away from his place close to the terminal, walked over to the pair, and lifted each of the laughably small mechs by the bars on the back of their necks, bringing them up to optic level and staring at them intently. They struggled momentarily before going slack in the mech's servos, still looking at each other with angry expressions.

"If either of you," the green one began in a dangerous, low voice that boomed from his vocalizer in the quiet room. "Get into another fight that is not against an enemy in the next orn, _especially_ if it's with each other, so help me Primus you won't see the light of day until this fraggin' war is over and you can find some medic to detach your helms from where I'll have welded them up your afts. Savvy?"

The two mechs nodded, causing them to sway comically in the other's grip.

"Good," the green mech said calmly, unceremoniously dropping the other two in an undignified heap on the floor. The tall one turned to the screen and addressed the past-Jazz.

"Hey Jazz," he said in a much brighter tone, rubbing the back of his helm and looking just a tad bit sheepish. "If it wasn't obvious, the two dumbafts just can't keep their servos off each other."

This received cries of anger from the "two dumbafts", which the tall mech waved away uncaringly. The black mech stomped up to the terminal, not looking very happy.

"The slagger started saying I would get it on with 'Cons again," he snarled, looking for Jazz to side with him.

The TIC chuckled. "Do you mean that as in he was taunting you about it before, or you already got in on with some?" The look on the black mech's faceplates was so comical that the red and yellow twins couldn't keep from snickering aloud in the present as they watched the proceedings.

"He was being mean to me!" the white mech cried, pointing a digit at the black one, with whom he shared a remarkable resemblance – could these be those twins they were reading about? – and looked surprisingly young as he did so; very immature for a supposedly undercover mech.

"Yeah, Snowflake, I can believe that," Jazz said, a smile peeking out form under his visor. Snowflake? What a terrible designation for any mech.

"Ignore Ice Blink, he's being a sparkling today," the big green mech said. Ice Blink, well at least that name had some dignity to it.

"He's one every day," the black mech muttered, grumbling to himself but purposely loud enough for others to hear.

"And so are you, Pyro," Jazz told him, laughing loudly at the shocked and furious look that adorned the short mech's faceplates. The green mech did hid best to stifle a laugh and addressed Jazz in an odd fashion.

"Yeah, Captain Jazztastic, we all know that already. What we don't know is why you wanted us to call in so soon." Captain Jazztastic? Where had _that_ come from?

Jazz's faceplates became more solemn, business-like. "I need you boys to get more on the new base."

"What?" the black mech all but shrieked. "You swore that we'd never have to go back there again! I am NOT getting felt up by those disgusting 'Cons again!"

The green mech sent a lethal glare at "Pyro", and Jazz stopped him before he could say anything, saying, "Stryker, s'okay. I really don't mind it."

"But I do mind when mechs sneak into my office and hack into my extremely private and highly classified transmissions that not even Prowl and Prime know about." The twins turned slowly and nervously, afraid to look at the short, visored mech they knew was leaning against the doorframe of the office. Jazz had a dangerous glint to his visor, definitely not a happy or playful one as he usually did.

"Care to tell me why you broke into my office and committed acts that could get you court marshaled and thrown out of the faction?"

* * *

**Yes, the twins are in BIG trouble. Review and maybe we'll get to see what will happen...**

**Cannon tag (what Rumble and Frenzy were said to have been playing) is a reference to an offhand thought that Astrotrain makes in my story "Dark Pasts" about how doors on the _Nemesis_ must be reinforced to last in cannon tag games.**


	3. Trouble in NotSoParadise

**Yes, I took a while, I'll admit it. But I think this chapter makes up for it!**

- blah -** com link**

**Disclaimer:**** I don't own Transformers or any of its characters, but I do own Stryker, Pyro, Ice Blink, and anyone who you don't know.**

* * *

Stryker sat in the current temporary shelter of Jazz's Boys, helm in his servos, and slowly released air from his intakes in aggravation. He and Ice Blink had been unable to find out why Soundwave had so quickly left the area in favor of the _Nemesis_. There was a sick feeling in the back of his processors that the Decepticon may have returned to report their activities to Megatron. The green mech couldn't help the shudder brought on by that idea. He'd never met the great Slag-Maker before and had no inclination to do so in the near or distant future.

One thing the Special Ops SIC was not looking forward to was their impending infiltration of the 'Con's base-in-progress. Apparently the twins had made quite the impression on the workers and would not have been forgotten by them so soon, so the trio needed to break into the premises without being seen. The only real issue with that was the adversity the group had to the idea.

Jazz's Boys hadn't had a break in quite a while. After all, war never takes a break. Still, Autobots on the Ark got some time off; the boys were always out and about, their only respite being when they were in recharge, and even that was a brief time. As they had just returned from one mission, they weren't very keen on another at the moment, especially not one that was so very dangerous. Pyro, ever the whiner, kept vocally addressing this.

"Is Jazz trying to get us killed?" seethed the black mech, a minibot to be precise. When nobody answered him, mainly because Stryker didn't have the energy for it and Ice Blink was already recharging against the leader's shoulder struts, Pyro answered himself. "Yep, he's making a concentrated effort to slag us over. We're all going to die because of this." The only form of response he received was the sight of his twin snuggling up to Stryker's arm and muttering something about an energon-sucking monster. His twin really was childish at times; he was innocent to the point where Pyro himself could barely believe at times that his brother was Special Ops.

"Pyro, please," murmured Stryker miserably.

He had such an intense feeling of foreboding about this mission, and after working in Special Ops for so many vorns, Stryker was no stranger to his instincts, and he knew that they were usually right. That made the idea of this particular mission even more harrowing. He was absolutely sure that something was going to go wrong on this mission, terribly, horribly wrong; however, Stryker couldn't back down from a mission – his pride would not allow it. That was what lead to the trio standing on the very edge of the Decepticon's new base site, looking for a way to enter without being spotted.

"I think I see an in!" Ice Blink exclaimed, pointing at a shaded area to the trio's left. He yelped when his brother smacked his arm admonishingly.

"Do you want us to get caught?" hissed Pyro menacingly. His twin stuck out his glossa in reply.

"Both of you cut it out!" chastised Stryker in a low voice, optics flickering between the twins and the Decepticon presence around them.

The Boys were standing in the shadows of an overhang of unused materials, tucked away behind large rolls of sheet metal that were to be used for the outermost layer of the indoor walls. Luckily, the 'Cons were behind on their base-building and were nowhere near placing the final touches on the building's interior – while some sections had been mostly finished and then lightly and roughly furnished to serve as headquarters for the project's supervisors, large parts of the structure were still framework, which made them hard to hide in.

Hiding was necessary, as the furnished section of the building was bound to be where all the information was, and that was in the very center of the premises, surrounded by metal beams and supports that had yet to be made into actual walls and ceilings, meaning that the barren outer area of the building had to be crossed to reach the, as Ice Blink called it, "chewy center" of the base.

Stryker looked to where Ice Blink had pointed. There was a crude doorway cut into the side of the inner structure, covered with a black tarp of sorts. It was more than nothing; however, it was dangerous – the three had no idea what lay beyond that entrance. They could be shot as soon as they entered. There was only one way to know.

"Let's go," Stryker muttered before he ducked his helm and slipped through the shadows. He exited the hiding place and held his head high, walking with a stiff, determined gait as if he belonged there. The twins hadn't recognized any of the workers at the site currently, so the current plan for infiltration was to act like they belonged until they were found out, in which case they'd fight like all Pit as they were most likely gunned down.

Stryker took in his surroundings. So far so good. None of the 'Cons found them to be at all conspicuous, probably due to the temporary thin red glass that the Boys had adhered to their optics and the also temporary Decepticon insignias they were sporting.

It was mildly surprising that they reached the tarp to the interior without any fuss. The three shared a look, one that could possibly be their last, and pulled back the tarp.

Nothing. No shouts, no shooting. Just...nothing.

The three released air from their vents in unison, unbelievably relieved to have made it this far without injury.

- Umm, guys? What do we do now? –

Stryker froze. Ice Blink had a point. What _should_ they do now? He'd thought they would've been killed by now. Frankly, none of them had expected to make it this far, so he hadn't thought ahead about what to do once they'd actually infiltrated the premises.

- Uh... Mmm, okay, we're going to get into their inner sanctum. –

- Really now? – Pyro asked rhetorically. Stryker slanted him a look.

- We only know the general layout of the place. We can't just go running around blindly when we don't know what each room is used for or where the supervisors will be. Keep a low profile. If we get caught, then we're confused workers who got a little lost. Lots of 'Cons are stupid; they'll believe it. –

_They'll believe it_, Stryker repeated in his head. They had to believe it, for all of their sakes. He couldn't stand it if he was the reason his team was harmed, let alone _killed_.

"Decepticons: Superior. Thus: Not stupid."

A shiver ran down Stryker's back, one of sheer terror, _only_ terror, he told himself. He knew that deep monotone, that stunted speech pattern. What the Pit was the bastard doing here? He was supposed to be on the _Nemesis_.

"Response: Needed to further investigate possible threat. Threat: Located."

Risking a glance up, Stryker saw that the cassette carrier had a formidable looking gun trained on them. He kept his optics on the gun barrel, already imagining it firing at him and killing his boys...

_No!_ he raged internally. _He will _not _kill my only family!_

With that one thought ringing in his mind, Stryker pulled out his own weapon, aimed, and...

* * *

"Uh, Jazz, hi! We were just, uh..." Sideswipe tried, and failed, to come up with any sort of believable excuse as to why he and his brother were caught viewing extremely private and top-secret footage.

"You were what, Sides?" asked Jazz dangerously. "What? Just watching my private discussions? Just reading my personal mail? And that's perfectly okay, of course. I mean, it's not like Ops keeps some things secret from Prime and even their own operatives for a _reason_. It's perfectly fine for you to break into my office and violate my privacy and learn information that could get you killed. I mean, it shows just how much respect you have for others, especially one of the few officers who allows you to get away with your little pranks. So this is the thanks I get, huh?"

"Jazz, we didn't mean it like that," Sideswipe began with his optics wide. "We weren't trying to be disrespectful. We just wanted to settle a bet."

Jazz's optics flared. "You would risk my boys' _lives_ to settle a _bet_?"

"We didn't do anything!" shouted Sunstreaker, never one to be able to take a verbal lashing well. "We just saw a file – that's all!"

"And that's one security breach too many!" replied Jazz with clenched fists. He pushed himself off of the doorframe and locked the door. Storming up to Sunstreaker, Jazz glared up at the taller warrior, visor flashing brightly. "I've got enough issues with security at the moment as it is! Soundwave knows what my boys look like, he knows the name of my second in command – it's amazing he hasn't realized yet who they are! Now you two know all of their names _and_ what they look like. Do you realize how dangerous that is for all of us? You two could be interrogated viciously for that information; 'Cons know the rumors about the Boys just as well as you do.

"Of course, I haven't even mentioned how this could hurt my boys. They're around your age, did you realize that? Stryker, he's probably a couple vorns younger than you, and the twins are younger than that. Those boys, they're the only family that they've got, other than me. Orphans, all three of them. The twins, they at least had each other all their lives. Strykey wasn't as lucky. He grew up alone in the overcrowded orphanages on Kaon – I'm sure you've heard how things are there. Too many younglings, too few mechs and femmes willing to adopt. Underfunded, overcrowded, too-small facilities without the necessary supplies to raise so many younglings. It's amazing Strykey didn't come out a total lunatic.

"The reason I'm telling you all of this is 'cause I want you to understand that the Boys won't take well to the possibility of losing one of their own. Just by knowing about them, you've greatly increased the chance of one of them gettin' hurt, or worse. I don't think any of them could forgive themselves if one of 'em died. _I_ would never forgive myself if somethin' happened to those boys. So you're gonna listen up, and you're gonna listen well. Those three boys are my responsibility; they're like creations to me. If they're in any way harmed 'cause of somethin' one of you two did, I will end you both, no matter the consequences. You hear me?"

Numbly, the twins nodded. They had never seen this side of Jazz before, this ruthless, furious, extremely protective side of him. It was a little scary.

"Good." Jazz settled back, just slightly, and transmitted a silent string of codes to the door, causing it to unlock. "If I hear you ever speak of what you found here, they'll never find your bodies. Now get out of here." The twins did so, as fast as they could.

Jazz exhaled loudly. What the Pit was he going to do about _this_?

Someone pinged him, requesting for him to open his com channel.

- You got Jazz. Talk to me. – After a moment, a response came from Blaster.

- Hey Jazz. Mech, you know someone called "Snowflake?" Called the _Ark's_ systems directly, said somethin' about not wanting to use the private channel with _him_ around. He's askin' for you. You wanna come down and take the call? He says it's urgent. –

A chill swept through Jazz's systems. Ice Blink, or any of the Boys, for that matter, would never contact him mid-mission unless it was for something truly important, and they wouldn't dream of using any channel but Jazz's private, made-especially-for-his-boys channel. Why would he call the _Ark_...unless... Holy Primus, please no!

- I'm comin' fast as I can, Blaster. Keep him on the line! –

Running as fast as he possibly could, the TIC reached the _Ark's_ central hub in what had to be record time. The visored mech quite literally skid into the room, almost bypassing it due to his speed. To his dismay, a crowd of officers had formed in the room. Optimus Prime, Prowl, Red Alert, and Ironhide were in attendance along with Blaster, and knowing his luck Ratchet was on his way.

"Jazz, who is this?" Prime asked before he was unceremoniously shoved passed by his anxious Ops officer.

Shoving Blaster out of his seat, Jazz took his place and accessed the call. "You still on the line, Snow?"

"Jazz! Oh, thank Primus; I swear I'll actually get all religious if we make it out alive!"

"What's happenin' kid, talk to me!"

Jazz could have sworn that his spark stopped when he heard gunfire in the background.

"Frag!" Ice Blink wailed. Crashes were heard, and then the mech came back to the call. "We're in deep slag here, deep! Soundwave came back, I repeat, the fraggin' telepath is on the site! I didn't call the private channel 'cause then he'd know its codes - Slag! He showed and Boss flipped slag and got out his gun and those weird cassette-things o' Sounders' showed up and they tackled him and everyone's wrestling on the floor and there are guns shooting and I can't feel Pyro holy Primus I can't feel him Jazz I can't feel him!"

The saboteur knew that things had to be bad if one of his operatives dropped cover in front of others. Ice Blink was having a meltdown – no pun intended – and Jazz couldn't do anything about it.

Jazz felt more than heard Prowl come up behind him. "Jazz, who is he? Who's he talking about?"

Added Ironhide, "Yeah, what's all this about Soundwave?"

"Some sort of conspiracy, I'm sure," muttered Red Alert.

"Jazz, please tell us what is going on," requested Prime as diplomatically as possible.

The third in command spun in the chair, visor flashing at the assembled group. "I'll explain later, okay? Right now, I have an extremely delicate, dangerous situation and the lives of some mechs very close to me are in the balance. For the time being, shut your mouths and hold your glossas, got it?" Without waiting for a response, Jazz returned to the call, not noticing the confused and slightly hurt look the flitted through his bonded's optics for the slightest of moments.

"C'mon Snowflake, speak to me. What's happening?"

_Bang!_ Jazz shuddered as he heard a massive explosion echo through the transceiver.

"Snowflake? Snowflake! Ice Blink, report! Ice Blink!"

Static, and then the sound of scraping as Ice Blink pulled himself through wreckage.

"J-Jazz?"

"M'here, kiddo, I'm here. How are you? What happened?"

"Th-the 'Cons. They found us out, and Soundwave showed up, and-and...and..."

"What's happening to that mech?" demanded the dulcet tones that could only belong to the Autobot's CMO. "I know shock when I hear it. You should be lucky a mech in shock can even form a lucid statement."

The head of Special Ops completely ignored the medic but filed away that information for later.

"I know, Ice, I know. Let's start easy: are there any 'Cons around?"

A pause. "N-no. No. Th-they all l-left when someone sh-shot the building s-support. It f-fell on us. I d-don't s-see anyone ar-around, but I might be wr-wrong."

For being under such stress, Jazz took it all in stride, keeping his cool as always. "Okay, that's good, Ice, that's real good. Are you damaged?"

"M-m-my l-legs. I c-can't f-feel them. N-nothing. I-it's l-like they're n-not even th-th-there." His shock-and-injury induced stutter increased to one that could rival Mixmaster's.

"All right, where's your brother?"

Another pause followed by a deep intake of air. "Pyro, I st-still can't f-feel him. It h-hurts, Jazzy, r-really bad. A-all over, but r-r-really b-bad in my sp-spark."

Once again Ratchet cut in. "Is that mech a twin? That's all we need, a damaged pair of twins that were just victims of a Decepticon attack. Where are they and why aren't we helping them?"

Before Jazz could respond, Ice Blink did. "Wh-who's that?"

"That's Ratchet, Blinks. Remember how I told you about him?" Jazz realized that he was talking to the white minibot as if he were a youngling, but thought nothing of it; Ice Blink needed it right now.

"The H-Hatchet?" Ice Blink let out a strangled noise that could have been an attempted laugh, but Jazz couldn't be sure.

Ignoring Ratchet's scowl, Jazz chuckled. "Yep, that's him. Do you know where Pyro is?"

"N-No. I t-told you I c-can't f-feel him. Can't s-see h-him, either."

Jazz shook his head and growled in frustration, making sure his operative couldn't hear him. Ice Blink was in a fragile enough state as it was.

"J-Jazzy? C-Could you c-come g-get us? I c-can't feel my s-servos anym-more."

"Yeah Ice, we'll come get you. I've got the location of the base, so you just sit tight and stay on the line, okay? We're gonna come get you guys and everything's gonna be alright."

"O-okay."

Optimus sighed. He didn't want to resort to this. "Jazz, as Prime I am ordering you to tell me who these mechs are."

"Prime, I'd be glad to tell you, but not now. I don't have time right now. I swore I wasn't gonna let nothin' hurt my boys, and I'm standing by that."

Realization dawned on Blaster, who was still sitting on the floor. "Wait, you mean that 'Jazz's Boys' are real? Whoo, I so won that bet! Sad thing is, the vote was 'bout half and half, anyway. Won't be much payout."

Jazz, once again, ignored one of his comrades. "Hey Ice, one more thing. Where's Stryker?"

"St-Stryker...? I...I d-don't... Jazzy, they t-took him."

No words had ever scared Jazz quite as much as those ones. "Who took him, Blinks? Who?"

There was a sound of shuddering tanks as Ice Blink tried to clear his vents and keep from purging.

"Th-the 'Cons. Th-they t-took him. Jazzy, the 'C-Cons g-got St-Stryker."

* * *

**Yes, I AM evil. For anyone who couldn't tell, Soundwave went back to the **_**Nemesis**_** to pick up his cassettes before returning to the base, where he ran into our favorite trio. Also, remember that we don't know who shot first, or what exactly happened during the attack. We'll just have to see, won't we? ;)**

**Please review!**


	4. Mindscapes

**I'm back, peeps! **Silence** Aw, no clapping? Alas, alas. Hey, look, new chapter! Woot! And I know I always have some typos and such that I gradually fix after the posting, but I'm quite proud of this chapter. More Soundwave insight here! Go read it! Oh, and I'm changing the tags on this due to the direction it's taking.**

**Disclaimer:**** I don't own Transformers or any of its characters, but I do own Stryker, Pyro, Ice Blink, and anyone who you don't know.f**

* * *

_Thud_.

The helm hit the wall before bouncing forward again, only to smack against the wall once more.

_Thud_.

The process was repeated.

_Thud._

"Would you quit that?" Rumble growled irritably. The prisoner just continued as he had been, beating the back of his helm against the wall he was sitting against. His optics were offlined, and his faceplates were void of emotions. The mech gave no sign of hearing the cassette's request.

_Thud._

"What, are your audios malfunctioning? Cut it out!"

_Thud._

_Thud._

_Thud._

"Aaagh!" the cassette screamed. He really wanted to smash that helm in for the mech.

"He still keeping that up?" Frenzy sauntered into the room holding two cubes of energon. He jumped up on desk next to his twin and handed him one of the cubes.

"What do you think?" Rumble took a long sip from the cube, sighing afterwards. "He's been doing it for joors. Won't listen to me, won't even respond to anything. Just keeps beating his head against the wall."

"Maybe he misses his friends," Frenzy guessed. His twin glanced at him from the corner of his optics, still keeping his gaze primarily on their lone prisoner in his cell.

"We've had plenty of Autobots in here before without their 'friends,' and none of them resorted to masochism, at least not so quickly."

"Well, how would I know? Boss is the one who's on the up and up with all of this. I just know that he's the slagger who opened fire on us."

"I know! And here I thought we were kind of lovable." The twins snickered at the joke.

Frenzy looked at his brother. "Seriously, though, have you noticed how weird the boss is being? He just keeps staring into space sometimes, you know?"

"Shut up, idiot!" Rumble shot a glance at their prisoner, who just kept hitting his helm against the wall behind him, not having changed his pattern once or missed a beat. It was as if he was in his own little world, detached from reality.

_Thud._

Frenzy scoffed. "Does he look like he's going to be telling any secrets anytime soon?" When his twin didn't reply, he nodded in satisfaction. "So anyways, have you noticed it? He's worrying about this whole thing a lot more than he usually would. It's like this is all he thinks about anymore. I told him that me and Skywarp were gonna go play catch using Ratbat, and he didn't even say anything."

"Did you?"

"Nah. Somehow I got some semblance of a fraggin' conscience instilled in me."

"Wimp."

"No! It's just, the little slagger was looking at me with those big optics, and he was cooing and smiling and I just couldn't bring myself to do it."

"You're going soft on me." It wasn't a question.

"Like you would've done it! Not only would Soundwave have killed you, but you would've felt bad. C'mon, admit it."

"I shall admit no such thing. But you're right about Boss being really into this whole thing. He was going all 'search and destroy' without even talking it over with Megatron! What's with that?"

"Except there was no destroying. What kind of order is 'search and take prisoner but leave the other two?' Makes no sense. Plus it just doesn't roll off the glossa as nicely."

Rumble paused in thought. "Really, though, what do you think is getting him so interested with _that_?" He pointed a digit at the apparently masochistic green and black mech.

"He can keep a beat?" Frenzy ventured. Again the two chuckled at their own hilarity.

_Thud._

Frenzy looked at his brother with serious optics. "Do you think maybe Dad is like..._interested_, interested in him?"

Rumble was shocked at his brother's statement. They only referred to Soundwave as "Dad" when they were unnerved about something. And the sheer idea of it... _their_ creator, interested in Autoscum? Preposterous!

The cassette cheered for himself at being able to properly use the Decepticons' Word of the Week. None of the 'Cons would admit it, but they all liked the ways that Megatron told Starscream to incorporate learning into the Decepticons' everyday routines after receiving some particularly horrendous reports which finally keyed the Lord High Protector in on just how under-educated many of his soldiers were.

The surlier cassette said shakily, "Yeah, like Boss would ever care about Autoscum."

The twins laughed nervously together, the entire time imagining just how true that statement might be.

Frenzy looked at his brother head on, forcing his twin to meet his optics. "Would he?" he said seriously.

His brother blew off the remark with his usual behavior. "If he did, do you think he would go for _that_?" Once more he gestured to the prisoner.

_Thud._

"Yeah, you're right. We're just being paranoid. Us and our weird processors, right?" The two continued chuckling uneasily, but they were more afraid of what would happen if Soundwave _did_ have..._feelings_ for an Autobot. Chances were that he was just caught up in his work, but they had never seen him behave that way towards anyone before, Autobot or Decepticon. It was like the green mech held their creator's processor captive. Wait...he didn't, did he, because that would be really freaky.

"Statement: Processor is securely in helm. Inquiry: What would make you think such?"

The twins jolted from their positions slumped against each other. Rumble had to grab Frenzy to keep him from falling off of the desk.

_Thud._

Soundwave looked at the disturbance. The light of his optical band brightened before dimming to a soft glow. "Stryker: Please cease harmful acts. Report: Autobots have deployed to retrieve your team."

Rumble was shocked to see the banging stop for a moment, as if in thought, before continuing. He was even more stunned to hear Soundwave expel air from his vents in a sigh. His creator sounded...weary. Exhausted, almost. And maybe even a little worried. Well, if he _did_ care about the Autoscum he would be; the mech hadn't stopped hitting his helm since he had onlined in his cell, and the dent on the back of his helm was deep, and energon had sprung from some gouges. But considering there were both Autobot and Decepticon betting pools about if Soundwave even _had_ feelings, he couldn't imagine that his creator could actually care for one of the enemy.

"Stryker: Never proven to be an Autobot."

Rumble jerked. "C'mon Boss, what about that whole privacy thing we were talking about?"

"Soundwave: Apologizes. Telepathy: Habitual."

"Yeah, yeah. Hey, you just said that the Autobots were coming to get the masochist's team. Doesn't that make him an Autobot?"

_Thud._

"Stryker's faction: Never verified. Autobot involvement: Could be assistance for an ally or for injured mechs."

Frenzy snorted, "True, they'll help anyone with a sob story."

_Thud._

"If his team's okay, then why's he still literally beating himself up?" Rumble crossed his arms in annoyance.

Soundwave paused for a moment in thought. "Stryker: still feels as if he has failed his team. Reason: team still came to harm. Ignored: fact that team will be okay." As he said this last part, he looked directly at the green masochist, Stryker, apparently.

Frenzy idly took a sip from his energon cube. "Hey, if it's just us and the practically comatose guy over there, why are you still doing the weird speech thing?"

Soundwave sighed again. "Speech, I mean, _the_ speech is also habitual. It's hard to stop after speaking as such for long periods of time."

_Thud._

"Okay, seriously, stop that!" Rumble's calls were once again lost on the depressed mech.

Soundwave glanced at his creations, and then up at the cameras in the corners of the brig. Being thankful for once that he and his creations were the ones in charge of the cameras and knowing that Megatron knew he often turned off his cameras while interrogating prisoners, he sent a command to Buzzsaw to cease all recordings in the brig. After hearing his creation reply, he gestured to the twins to follow him. He approached the cell and keyed in an access code before stepping into the cell, motioning the twins to follow.

_Thud._

Rumble was more than a little confused when his creator stood in front of the prisoner and knelt so he could look him in the optics, optics which were still offlined.

_Thud._

"Stryker, would you please stop this? Harming yourself won't do you or your team any good." He was blatantly ignored. "What good does this do anyone? Truly, there is no reason for you to harm yourself." Silence. Understanding that no answer would be forthcoming, Soundwave resorted to skimming the mech's mind for an answer.

It felt like he had stepped into a sea of despair. Loneliness clawed at his spark, fighting with self-loathing for the right to consume it. Depression weighed on him like an infinitely heavy cloud, anxiety playing its sidekick. Watching these proceedings smugly were guilt and misery, acting like the rulers of this land of emotional pain.

He quickly pulled back from the mind. What had happened to Stryker? When he had first met the green and black mech, he had almost, _almost_ enjoyed flitting through his mind. It had been...refreshing, to say the least. Someone who thought for themselves with the slightest side of dry wit and good humor, not enough to be overbearing like Skywarp or his own twins, but enough that he would be good conversation. And the slightest, almost unnoticeable temper that ghosted around his thoughts was like a delicious treat to a Decepticon. It was the same anger that had appeared when he had, without hesitation, opened fire on them. If he hadn't been trying to harm his younglings and himself, and if he hadn't then later had the equivalent of a mental breakdown, Soundwave would have thought Stryker a fitting Decepticon.

Taking a deep intake of air through his vents, the telepath plunged back into the Pit O' Doom – where had that description come from? He checked and, surprisingly enough, it came from Stryker himself. It floated up through the darkness of the negative emotions, from somewhere beneath where his thoughts lay. Soundwave waded through the feelings, brutally shoving them aside before they could affect him too much and pushing his way towards Stryker's thoughts.

It was as if Stryker was trapped in his own mind, being crushed by guilt and bound by his own self-loathing to rot in his putrid state of mind, to remain there until his emotions and misery had finished gnawing away at his sanity. Soundwave would have none of it. What use was an insane prisoner? At least, that was the reason he gave himself. It was only because Megatron wouldn't want to deal with another crazy mech on the _Nemesis_, that was it. It had nothing to do with that curiosity that grew in the back of his processor like a creeper plant, small at first but slowly intertwining itself with every single process of his mind until it had formed a large, irremovable mass that was more than just simple interest. And slag it, but Soundwave couldn't bring himself to cut the pit-spawned curiosity down now, while it was young. He actually _wanted_ to see where this would go.

Stray thoughts drifted past the telepath, and he grabbed on to these, used their trails to find the way to Stryker's consciousness, buried underneath all of his emotional rubble.

..._It's all my fault, all my fault, all my fault..._

The thoughts echoed through the dismal landscape, repeating as if they were being parroted from all sides. Never before had Soundwave encountered such an...odd mindscape, a term Soundwave used to describe the ways processors chose to represent themselves.

When Soundwave read a mind, truly read it without just skimming the top, he actually felt like he was walking through the landscape of the other's mind, feeling their emotions with them, thinking their thoughts for himself. It was why he spoke in monotone and kept his features covered. It wouldn't be good if others knew that he experienced the same turmoil they did when they unconsciously projected their thoughts. Not only would they call him weak and an Autobot for feeling the emotions they all denied having, but then his own telepathy could be used against him, and that was not a risk the TIC was willing to take.

Some mindscapes were like Starscream's, the processor working so quickly, thoughts constantly flitting to and fro, that the entire feel was like standing in a swarm of petro-insects, or in the middle of a battle field with shots flying around them. Skywarp's was, dare he think it, like sitting in a field on a bright, peaceful orn, thoughts lazing like petro-rabbits before one of them started hopping about madly with a new pranking idea. It was surprising how Autobot-like the happy-go-lucky Seeker could be.

Megatron's mindscape was an anomaly, parts of it as dark and depressing as being trapped in a catacomb or the middle of a war-torn battlefield and others having almost romantic, picturesque feels to them – the great Slagmaker's actual imaginings for a Decepticon-ruled future, much less gory and slave-filled than even most of his troops suspected. In the end, for Megatron the war was still about bettering Cybertron, even if he didn't admit it.

But Stryker's mindscape, it was one of the most developed the telepath had ever seen. It was as if he had consciously constructed the world around him, not a sign of good mental health, as it was a sign of one who spent much too much time in their own head, retreating from reality in favor of their own company. The elements of Stryker's mindscape were his feelings personified. He wrapped himself in his own imaginings, his own self-created Pit, and allowed himself to just stay there, tortured in his own mind, like it was some sick form of retribution for whatever wrongs he believed himself to have committed. Never had he come across a mech so constantly depressed underneath such a believable veneer of contentment.

There was a tangible mist of worry and anxiety covering everything in sight, worry about being caught, for their leader, for their faction – for some reason Soundwave had been really, _really_ hoping that Stryker wasn't an Autobot, but of course he was. Working under Jazz, no less. Great, he was experiencing what might have been, no, was most definitely a frisson for the second in command of the Autobot that was one of his direct rivals.

One worry, one spark-shaking fear that encompassed all at that moment, including Soundwave's pondering over his distinct interest in the Autobot, was a fear of loosing his team, his brothers in arms. There was a literal stream of memories wandering through the dreamscape, and images surfaced to the top of the monochromatic twins that Stryker had been with. There they were, laughing at some joke. A scene of the three of them exiting a bar, a completely over-energized black twin – _Pyro_, the name floated beside the image – supported between the other two. Pyro digging his servo through his brother's – _Ice Blink's_ – innards while Stryker sat atop him; jealousy filled him before he realized that there was no reason for it, as nothing was at all passionate about the situation. Besides, he wasn't jealous, he really wasn't!

Another image caught his attention, one of the twins nestled together on a dented, dirty berth that could only have been in an abandoned home, if the room around it meant anything. Stryker's point of view was looking down at them curled up together. Emotions were tagged to the image: happiness, fondness, safety, contentment, love. Soundwave's anxiety settled when he felt how the love was purely fraternal; he then smacked himself for even having anxiety in the first place.

_Huh?_

Soundwave didn't realize just how much anxiety had been there. While it was present, it just added on top of Stryker's own, but with some of it gone, the mech could feel its lack, and he began to realize that he was not alone in his own mind, that someone else was reviewing his feelings and memories alongside him.

In the mindscape, Stryker's form appeared next to the cassette player. "Who...?" Realization dawned on the mech. "You. I should've guessed. Telepath and all." Arms crossed, Stryker stared into his own stream of memories. For the first time in his life, Soundwave felt like a voyeur in his telepathy.

"I did not mean to upset you by entering your mind. I only wanted to ensure your safety."

"Yep, sure. You don't have to pretend, you know. I mean, we are enemies. You're a Decepticon, I'm an Autobot, remember all that? Yeah, that means you don't have to worry about my feelings or safety. They don't matter in war."

The flat, concise tone was more than a little disconcerting to the Decepticon. He had heard it at the club; he knew this wasn't all that the Autobot thought. Pit, the Autobot had more than enough thoughts on everything, but he never spoke them. He just followed along with his role and did his job and never complained about being overworked or overstressed. Soundwave could see memories floating in the stream of Stryker staying up at night while the twins slept so he could create plans, or even stand guard to ensure they weren't attacked.

Soundwave's cassettes were spies, yes, but they were never left in situations that demanded that they stay on watch all night or constantly worry over everyone's safety. Stryker was not just a big brother to the twins, but practically a creator. While Jazz did play a role in their lives, it was from afar, across a cold, unfeeling screen. How often was he with his "Boys," really? The stream pulled up a memory as if on command, and there it was: Jazz meeting the Boys face to face. He had only physically met them a handful of times. The rest of the relationship was completely over a computer, through alternative forms of communication.

The Decepticon was shocked, honest to goodness shocked. The Boys didn't personally know anyone outside of themselves and Jazz, and apparently they didn't know Jazz too well either. The Autobots didn't even know of them – what would happen if they died? Would the Autobots even realize, or care? Maybe that was why Jazz hadn't told anybody of them; if they died, it wouldn't be a problem. Possibly the only reason that they had come for the twins was because Ice Blink had contacted them – once again he was thankful for Laserbeak and his recordings, or he wouldn't have known any of that.

In that moment, Soundwave felt some extremely un-Decepticon things. He wanted to go over to the Autobots' base and steal away the twins at that exact moment. But, seeing as he couldn't do that, he would do the next best thing: he was keeping Stryker, end of story.

Megatron wanted Stryker interrogated, well Soundwave had done more than that, and he had seen enough to know that the Boys had no true loyalty to the Autobots. Pit, they could meet the _Ark_'s crew and they wouldn't even recognize them! The Autobots weren't even sure of the Boys' existence, and wouldn't know them, either. Soundwave was almost sure that Megatron would agree that, with a little work, Stryker could be swayed to the Decepticons' side of things. The factions weren't that different, after all, even though nobody would believe him if Soundwave voiced this.

The Boys hadn't even ever signed over to the Autobots. Jazz had pulled them from the streets after trailing them for a long time, and they had felt as if they owed him for that. Soundwave was almost sure that this was the only reason the Boys were Autobots. So maybe he could encourage Stryker to join them.

Then all of his wayward thoughts wouldn't be so taboo...

Stryker stared at the mech who had invaded his head. "Um, what are you doing?"

Soundwave, unused to having feelings flowing so freely around him after keeping his stiff shell up for so long and more than a little caught up in the way that the mindscape magnified thoughts, feelings, and resolves, turned to Stryker with an abnormally bright optical band. He took a step closer to the green mech, and then...

* * *

**And we're going to stop here for today! Yes, I am evil, thanks much. Sorry there's none with the Autobots this chapter, I wanted to give something to the 'Cons, and then the part I intended with the Autobots got bumped to next chapter. All of the flowery descriptions, that's more Soundwave and his perceptions of things. Or at least how I think he would perceive things. And so you know, Soundwave is being very presumptuous about some things here, but that's a lot to do with hanging around someone's mindscape for too long – it messes with your mind, and things aren't logical if the mindscape isn't logical. Thus, Soundwave isn't logical. ¿****Comprenden****? **

**Please review!**


	5. Do You Remember?

**This chapter is earlier than I intended, and you all have **_**thebrokencradle **_**to thank for that! They wrote me an awesome Perceptor/Soundwave one-shot for encouragement called "All About Us" – check it out! After all, the quickest way to an author's heart is by writing them something, or bothering them incessantly to update. Seriously, I like people who bother me when I take too long to update, as long as they don't get too obnoxious. Just knowing that you care enough to bother me makes me weirdly happy. So here's a chapter for you guys, especially for you, **_**cradle**_**!**

**Disclaimer:**** I don't own Transformers or any of its characters, but I do own Stryker, Pyro, Ice Blink, and anyone who you don't know.**

* * *

When the Autobots came upon the now-abandoned base-in-progress, they were in shock at the giant mound of rubble. The entire support structure had been brought tumbling down, and it seemed that anyone caught in the wreckage was for sure deactivated. However, they couldn't use that excuse to keep from their current mission – Jazz was fairly sure he would lose his mind if he lost his Boys in there.

Not taking any time to listen to the plan Prowl was trying to form, Jazz rushed into the precariously piled debris, ignoring his comrades' shouts for him to wait. Ice Blink had sounded bad, and he said Pyro was probably worse off. Maybe his comrades could wait, but his Boys couldn't.

Running through the unstable wreckage, Jazz was immediately calling for his subordinates. "Ice Blink! C'mon kid, talk to me! Ice Blink!" If he could just hear them, maybe he could find them.

He shoved aside the remnants of fallen, twisted support beams, wincing at how heavy they were. His boys were trapped under this? As he left the rest of the Autobots with no choice but to follow him, Jazz slowly crawled and twisted his way through the still-smoldering mass of construction supplies, desperate to find his team.

"C'mon, Boys, say somethin'!"

"S-somethin'," came the feeble reply from somewhere in the wasteland of debris. Jazz latched onto that small voice and ran blindly towards it, ruthlessly shoving aside the metal supports and scraps of building material that dared bar his way. Finally, _finally,_ he reached his subordinate.

Never before had Jazz seen Ice Blink so...still. The bubbly little 'Bot was always bouncing around, or jiggling his leg when forced to sit – even in recharge he was always turning and moving. Yet here he was, still and stiff, watching his own servo like he had never seen it before.

"D-does th-th-this l-look-k h-healthy t-to y-you?" he asked conversationally with a stutter that affected every word he said. He was still staring at his servo, where the white plating was slowly loosing its glossy sheen. With a sick twist in his tanks Jazz realized that the plating was graying due to a large, long piece of metal that pierced his servo completely and continued on through his thigh beneath it and ended somewhere in the ground. Purple, dried, crusted energon coated the usually pristine, snow-white plating, smearing it with light pink streaks. Worst of all, Ice Blink didn't even seem to realize how injured he was.

"Oh Primus, oh sweet Primus." Jazz was in shock himself at the energon surrounding the 'Bot, so much that it was astonishing he wasn't in stasis. "You just stay put there Blinks, I'll get you outta here, I promise. Just stay still; don't move!" He knew enough about severe puncture wounds to know that removing the object could make the victim bleed out.

"Ratchet, we need you here _right now_!" he called as loudly as he could. The saboteur thanked his deity to hear the sounds of his comrades crashing through the rubble, and he couldn't believe how relieved he was to see Ratchet's scowling faceplates pierce through the smoke and dust wafting off of the should-be building.

The CMO stumbled slightly as he tripped on a bar, but didn't let that stop him once he had his patient in sight. A white mech, a minibot to be precise, was skewered in multiple places by a large support, and didn't even seem to realize it.

"Thank Primus," Jazz muttered as he helped Ratchet to his patient, noticing that Ironhide and Trailbreaker were following behind. They had a lot of the _Ark_ out for the impromptu rescue, and they needed the larger mechs to help move debris.

Ice Blink barely shifted his helm to the right to see who was coming, wincing as he did so. "Wh-who's th-that-t?"

Jazz smiled somewhat grimly, trying to keep his worry and fear from his expression. He had to be strong for his Boys. Softly and gently he said, "Hey Blinks, this is Ratchet – remember how you heard him during our call?"

"Y-yeah," the white mech muttered, optics dimming slightly.

Ratchet growled lightly. "Listen youngling, you are going to stay conscious, or so help me Primus I will turn you into a femme!"

"C-can I b-be a pr-pretty f-femme?" he asked, lightly canting his helm, the ghost of his usual cocky smile flitting across his faceplates.

"Yeah, sure, you'll be gorgeous," the CMO muttered, moving closer to assess the damage. "Just keep talking and you'll be the most beautiful femme in all of Cybertron."

"A-as l-long-g as I-I'm p-prettier-r th-than P-Pyro." After he said this, his helm canted further, as if in thought. A look of sheer and utter horror crossed his faceplates.

"I c-can't f-feel h-him J-Jazz!" he shrieked, almost as if he hadn't realized this before. Ice Blink began thrashing, aggravating his wounds, and he keened, loud, energon-curdling, spark-breaking cries. Ratchet swore colorfully.

"He's having memory lapses due to energon loss. Trailbreaker, try to calm him down. What's his name again?"

"Ice Blink," Jazz murmured, staring at the injured youngling.

"Right; now get the Pit out of here and find his brother. Use your infrared sensors if necessary, though the melting metal might throw it off. Go! We'll look after your friend here."

Jazz ran off in search of Pyro while Trailbreaker crouched next to the pinned mech, softly introducing himself and coaxing the small mech into his arms, where he sobbed miserably, his spark crying out for his brother.

Ratchet scanned the mech and cursed again. "Pit, he's split-spark. If Jazz doesn't find his brother soon, then there's nothing we can do for him."

"Why does being split-spark make a difference?" Ironhide inquired. He was doing his best to cut off upper part of the metal bar that was pinning Ice Blink – chances were the youngling would need to pole removed once they were in the medbay, but doing so before would cause him to bleed out, so they would need to cut off as much of the pole as possible and then transport the white minibot to the _Ark_.

"Fraternal twins occur when two sparks are conceived at the same time; split spark twins come from a spark that splits upon birth, like in Sideswipe and Sunstreaker's case, or this mech's. Split-spark twins have a closer bond, but if one dies, the other will follow, like with bondmates. They truly are one half of the same mech. If Jazz doesn't find his brother soon, they'll both deactivate."

Ice Blink keened loudly at this and dragged his non-pinned servo up through the rubble to clench against Trailbreaker's chassis, clinging to the large black mech for dear life and burying his faceplates in the other's plating, not caring that he didn't know this mech. The black paint was similar to Pyro's, and that was all that mattered to him.

Trailbreaker wasn't sure what to do with the unknown mech curled and sobbing in the solace of his arms. He winced when Ratchet had to cut away a patch of grayed plating to keep it from spreading, hearing Ice Blink let out a horrific shriek. Ratchet could only administer a small sedative to numb the plating; if Ice Blink lost consciousness, he may never wake up.

With that in mind, Trailbreaker's arms tightened around the minibot and he did his best to soothe him. They could only hope that Jazz would find his brother soon.

* * *

Jazz was once again running through the rubble. Somewhere in his rapid wanderings he had come across Optimus Prime and Prowl, both of whom were following him now; Prowl had already sent for First Aid to join them, so hopefully he could do something to help Pyro when they found him.

When they found him... Jazz tried so hard to keep that a "when" and not an "if." Prowl sent waves of comfort over the bond, but that didn't keep the terror from his spark that he could lose Pyro, and in turn Ice Blink. He just had to find the other twin and keep that possibility from ever coming true.

Considering the chances of Pyro responding to verbal calls as his brother had were almost nil, Jazz resorted to using infrared scanners in his visor. There were bright colors abounding throughout the heated metal of the area, but one large splotch of color resided not too far from the saboteur. He went after it like a shot.

There, lying almost completely concealed amongst the debris and wreckage was Pyro, his black plating peeking out from under a large section of wall. By the looks of things, he had been thrown by a blast of sorts to get so far away from his twin.

Jazz called to the others for assistance in removing a large sheet of metal used for walls off of the small black twin. He hissed in unhappiness at the offlined blue optics peering out from a dented, bashed helm where an entire section of plating had been removed, a piece of shrapnel embedded in the sparking circuitry underneath.

"Oh, 'Ro," Jazz murmured, ghosting a servo over the young faceplates, contorted still in pain even in the peaceful abyss of stasis lock. He looked over his shoulder at the assembled Autobots, releasing air from his vents in relief when he spied First Aid pushing through them, followed by Wheeljack. Pyro was going to need all the help he could get.

First Aid immediately began cataloguing the damage to the minibot. He had a gaping wound to his helm and his lower half had been crushed by the weight of the debris, breaking, bending and warping his chassis and placing his spark in distress due to the pressure. This mech was lucky to still be alive.

Immediately the Autobots set to work on excavating the unconscious mech while keeping him alive. It was the least they could do, for the sake of these twins and for Jazz.

Sunstreaker and Sideswipe could only watch in horror as more of the damaged mech was uncovered. This mech was almost impossible to compare to the snarky black minibot they had seen in the recording.

This fight, these injuries, the Decepticon knowledge of the Boys' presence...had this all been their fault?

* * *

"Uh, Boss?"

Soundwave was unceremoniously yanked from his blissful, logic-free voyage into Stryker's processor; he cursed ever thinking that having creations would be a good idea. They really ruined one's love life!

Wait...love life? He didn't have a love life; why would he be thinking that?

Oh Primus. He hadn't, please say he hadn't.

But he had. He had been about to, to fragging _kiss_ an Autobot! What was wrong with him? Or, as Rumble would say, what was _right_ with him?

Soundwave had no idea where that impulse had come from. He had been talking with the Autobot and reviewing his memories in lieu of an interrogation, and then he had been looking at Stryker, truly looking at him, and seeing how the mech worried his lower lip and always looked like he was pouting about something, and how he rubbed the back of his helm when he was guilty or ashamed, and his optics flared when he made a sarcastic comment. How he canted his helm when he was interested in something, and how he smiled that tiny little smirk when he was amused, and how his faceplates completely relaxed when he felt safe.

How he looked at Soundwave with that indescribable emotion swirling through his optics.

All of it had just added up in Soundwave's mind, and what it all summed up to was Soundwave in a romantic relationship with an Autobot – something that could not, would not happen, ever.

Even if the Autobot had a kicked turbo-puppy look on his faceplates and he looked really cuddly right now.

"Boss? You with us?"

Soundwave's optics shuttered, and opened to reveal his cassettes looking at him with slightly nervous expressions. Explained Frenzy, "You kind of zoned out for a while. We were afraid something was going on in there."

Stryker snorted derisively, shocking the twins, who still expected him to be comatose. "It was _something_, all right." When Soundwave sent him a look, the other glared back defiantly.

It was then that Soundwave noticed his other cassettes circling them. When had they gotten here? It must have been sometime when he was in Stryker's mindscape.

Stryker himself had lain back on the floor and was staring at the ceiling, watching Ratbat and Laserbeak circle above him – Buzzsaw was still keeping the camera feed blocked.

The green mech smiled lazily at the bat-like creature. "Hey Senator, long time no see."

Ratbat just looked at Stryker with interest before squeaking and coming in for a closer look at the new mech. Soundwave was happy his mouthguard hid his shocked features.

"How-?" He couldn't bring himself to finish the statement, to reveal his secrets to an Autobot, no matter how he may or may not have felt about him.

Stryker's languid grin grew as he lifted a lethargic servo, allowing Ratbat to rest on it. The cassette trilled in curiosity. "You were my first assignment, you know," he softly intoned to the creature, who chirruped in delight when the second servo arose to stroke his wings lightly. "Jazz told me there was a situation, a suspected scheme to assassinate one Senator Ratbat. I was as green as the paint on my chassis, but I gave it a go. Was too late, obviously. I'd wandered around for a while, trying to gather intel, and by the time I had started to formulate a plan of action to go after my suspect – the senator's aide and bodyguard – he was already dead.

"Now, imagine my surprise when a few vorns later I hear that the great Decepticon Soundwave, Senator Ratbat's ol' right servo mech, has a cassette named Ratbat. Some said it was out of spite for the old cretin, a mockery of him. Me, I subscribe to the idea that your boss is a little too cunning, too vengeful, to simply create a mockery of you. No, I think he wanted to let you make a mockery of yourself, as a simple, innocent cassette with the processor of a sparkling, a true caricature of the grand, ruthless mech you once were. Personally though, I like you better this way. You're much more snuggly than you used to be, that's for sure. And you haven't insulted me like you did the last time I saw you, either."

Okay, now Soundwave was absolutely floored. Never before had anyone but Megatron so quickly deduced just what he had done to the great Senator Ratbat.

The entire "conversation," Soundwave had for some reason wished that Stryker would look at him instead of keeping up the act that he was speaking to Ratbat, who would never be able to understand something like what he had said. Ratbat spoke in clicks and whirs, he wouldn't understand full sentences!

But more interesting than Stryker speaking to his "creation" was that he was upset and annoyed not to be spoken to directly. For a reason he couldn't fathom, he wanted the Autobot to look at him while he spoke, so he could see the emotions light up those cobalt optics, those expressive faceplates. He wanted those optics to be trained on him at all times. Nobody else deserved Stryker's gaze, deserved to even be looked upon by him. Soundwave had no idea where that train of thought had come from, but he didn't really care – he _liked_ it.

"You knew Ratbat?" Frenzy asked in awe, growling when Ravage flicked his tail at him derisively.

"Briefly," Stryker muttered half to himself, rubbing the youngest cassette's helm in utter fascination. "Met your creator then, too." He finally turned those blue optics on Soundwave. "You just didn't care to pay attention to the street scum like me. It was before I became part of the Boys – I hadn't even had the dirt cleaned off me yet from my life on the streets. Jazz showed up, and it was straight from the streets to the Senate for me."

Soundwave didn't remember ever meeting Stryker before. He would have remembered this fascinating mech, at least the timbre of his mind if nothing else. But he still couldn't help himself from checking his impeccable memories for a trace of Stryker.

The telepath flicked through his own memories of his time working for Senator Ratbat. He almost missed the one he was looking for, it was so insignificant, but there it was, there nonetheless. Stryker was right – he _had_ met him before.

_It was a normal orn for Senator Ratbat and his aide, at least as normal as it could be when the commoners despised the senator and constantly tried to kill him._

_Soundwave was pushing through the crowd of protestors outside of the building where the Senator was due for a meeting, trying to make a clear path for his "master." Oh, how he loathed the mech, just as much as the protestors he was shoving aside. But he couldn't do anything about it, at least not yet. When Megatron came to power and the Decepticons rose...then they would see about who was the _true _"master" in this relationship._

_A disgustingly filthy green mech hurdled into his path, looking slightly nervous and more than a little confused. His features quickly smoothed out when he spied Ratbat over Soundwave's shoulder. The senator noticed the mech watching him, but was too busy sneering in disgust at his dented, scratched, dirty form._

"_Out of our way, filth!" called the senator. The green mech frowned briefly, but quickly shook off the expression._

"_Sir, I need to speak with you. It's about your own safety. There's been a rumor about a threat on your life, and I was sent by-"_

"_I don't care if you were sent by Primus himself! I will not be seen associating with street slag such as you. There are threats on my life every orn; I do not care about the rumors, or what 'safety' you think you can provide. Leave my sight at once!"_

_Soundwave wasn't so quick to pass off the mech's statement. Was this mech onto his plan? He seemed to know more than the others who would come screaming of death threats. The mech was more businesslike than the others had been, sure in what he was doing but not necessarily in how he was doing it. But all in all, it seemed he _had_ been sent by another._

_Had it just been Soundwave, he would have spent more time trying to figure out just what the young mech – and Primus, he was quite young – was up to; however, he had his "master" to worry about, and for the time being the senator came first._

_Averting his optical band so he wouldn't have to look at the young mech, he brutally pushed him away to make way for the senator. And wasn't that always how things went in his life? Pushing away things he cared for in favor of Senator Ratbat? Soon, things would no longer go that way. It would be what he wanted to do, what the Decepticons wanted to do, and the great Senator was going to be forced to watch it all in his state of silent subservience._

_And then he would search out that young street mech and find out just what knew or didn't know about his plans for the senator._

But he had soon forgotten about that young mech from the street and his plans to find him. He had forgotten until that very same mech brought it up to him vorns later. To think, he had been given a chance to bring Stryker to the Decepticon side early on, and he had ignored this chance for _Ratbat_, of all mechs. He would have been angry with the old senator, but looking at what the cruel mech had become, he felt his fury diminish.

When Ratbat had been reformatted, he had reverted to a sparkling state of mind, a sparkling that looked to Soundwave as his creator. In a way, this Ratbat was just as much his creation as any of the other cassettes. The spark may have originally belonged to another, another who used it for despicable purposes, but Soundwave had been able to recover it and put it to better use. He couldn't hate his Ratbat, but he could still loathe the memory of the vicious, uncaring, credit-obsessed politician that he had once been.

After all, in a way Senator Ratbat had taken Stryker from him before he even realized it. If only he could make the mech pay while still keeping his Ratbat. Stryker was right; the cassette was the snuggliest of them all, and the telepath couldn't believe that he had actually just thought that.

"Does he do this often?" Stryker asked while staring at the zoned-out Soundwave.

"Eh, more lately than usual," Frenzy replied. "You seem to have that effect on him." The cassette sent the Autobot an odd look through narrowed optics. Stryker just stared back, features guarded, as he continued watching the Decepticons around him.

What Soundwave had been doing in his mind... Had he..._liked _him? It had looked like he was going to _kiss _him! Sadly, that was probably just wishful thinking – no, no it wasn't, because he wasn't wishing for anything of the sort from a Decepticon! Primus, was he that low that he would let himself fall for a Decepticon just to have someone pretend to care for him? The answer: why yes, yes he was.

All he could do was keep his helm down and find a way out of this. Soundwave had said the twins had been found – good, then he just had to find a way out of here to get back to them. Then he would forget all about Decepticons who set his circuits alight in an ever so nice way and made his CPU and logic circuits melt into happy piles of goo.

The only problem was, Soundwave was planning on never letting his prize go. It would be a battle of wills to see who would get their way, and it was sure to be interesting – after all, they were two of the most stubborn mechs ever to grace Cybertron.

* * *

**I'm pretty proud of this chapter, though it's probably full of typos. Please review!**


	6. Planning Mishaps

**Usually I have harder times with starting a chapter, but this one came surprisingly easily, probably because I've been thinking over the beginning of it for a while. I wanted to get up another chapter of this by my birthday, sort of as a gift to myself. If you care, that's Saturday, August 21****st****. And now that I've got this done, maybe I can post the first chapter of a story I've been dying to write since this spring. I know I shouldn't, but hey, I'm feeling old and I like to indulge myself 'cause I'm a brat. So who knows, I might. But don't get your hopes up, it's not a TF story.**

**That crap aside, on with the chapter!**

**Disclaimer:**** I don't own Transformers or any of its characters, but I do own Stryker, Pyro, Ice Blink, and anyone who you don't know.**

* * *

The twins crept into the medbay at the end of their patrol. They didn't need any repairs, but they wanted to check on the _Ark_'s newest occupants.

To their luck, Ratchet had slipped off to the rec room for his rations, leaving his patients to recharge in peace. Not that they had onlined since they were brought to the _Ark_, but still.

Sideswipe quickly glanced around the medbay as he poked his head in to ensure that Wheeljack or Hoist or maybe even Perceptor hadn't been left in charge of the medbay in case a minibot had fallen victim to another of the twins' pranks, or better yet, the twins themselves had somehow injured themselves. Well, nobody was on duty, and the twins _were_ coming to the medbay, but for different reasons than expected.

The pair crept into the room as quietly as possible and made their way to the section in the corner that had been devoted to the medbay's newest long-term patients, but the twin frontliners froze when they saw that one of the occupants was not where he had been left.

The white minibot was sitting up on his berth as much as he could without moving his hips too much, considering many of his back struts had been crushed and mangled, which meant that he could only really lean on his less-damaged arm to get a better look at the mech on the berth next to him.

The minibot, who the twins had heard referred to as Ice Blink, was staring at his brother laid out on the berth next to him, carefully taking in the damage that his small frame had taken.

"He doesn't like to be alone," he said softly. Sideswipe jolted at the sudden and unexpected voice, almost knocking into his own twin. "Not that he would let anyone ever know that, but...he doesn't like to be alone.

"How did you...?" he trailed off as the minibot chuckled hoarsely.

"'M Ops, remember? 'S my job to know when I'm being crept up on. Could...could you come over here? I know there are two of you from the steps, but I can't see you without turning, and it was hard enough to get in this position in the first place."

Nodding though he knew the minibot couldn't see it, Sideswipe grabbed his brother by the wrist and pulled him until the pair stood at the head of the unconscious black minibot's berth, in clear view of his white twin.

Ice Blink's optics were half-shuttered – it was obviously taking up a lot of his energy to remain conscious – but he smiled wearily at the warrior twins when he saw them.

"You're Sunny n' Sides, righ'? Jazz told m' 'bout you. Sorry for th' slurred speech n' all. Got m' hop'd up n' painkillers somethin' fierce. I dunno if tha' ev'n made any sense, bu' oh well."

As his speech progressed it became worse, and Sideswipe noticed that was due to a time-release drip of some sort of liquid substance being fed into the minibot's injured arm through an insert into his tubing. While Ice Blink had been speaking, the machine the drip was attached to had beeped, and a new flood of the liquid had been released. Sideswipe knew from being attached to the same machine before that the liquid numbed one's sensors and dulled your processor's functions. The minibot wouldn't be online much longer.

"Yeah," Sunstreaker replied to the question Sideswipe had forgotten existed. "I'm Sunstreaker, that's Sideswipe."

"'M Ice Blink, an' tha's Pyro. He don't like mos' mechs, bu' he's a real sweetspark if ya know 'im. Heh, he'd b' so pissed wit' m' if he 'eard m' say tha'."

Sideswipe laughed, but it was a small, forced sound, fake to the audios of anyone who wasn't half-conscious. Ice Blink was obviously attached to his brother, just as Sideswipe was to Sunstreaker. He wasn't sure the minibot could last if his brother died, and Pyro was in shambles, and even that was an optimistic wording.

A monitor was hooked to the black mech's spark, forcing it to continue pulsing and doing much of the work for it. There were no readings from his processors, which meant that he was in complete and total stasis lock and wasn't coming out of it soon. His lower half had been destroyed and had to be amputated for the time being while Ratchet and Wheeljack did their best to make the minibot a new set of legs. All in all, it was only through extra machinery that Pyro was still alive, and even that couldn't hold him forever.

And what would happen to his brother then?

Ice Blink never once took his optics off his brother. He watched him with an indescribable fondness that was barely shown between the twins. They fought all the time and were often screaming insults at each other, but he loved his twin more than he could ever admit. What was he, without Pyro? Nothing but a half-spark, the idiotic half. The useless half.

He needed Pyro to be whole, to be helpful. To be relevant. Without his twin, he was nothing.

"Hey..." he murmured to the twin frontliners, trailing off as he tried to gather his thoughts. "Could ya move m' berth a lil' closer to 'Ro's? He gets nervous n' places he don't know, an' I don't wan' 'im to freak out when he onlines."

Silently the pair nodded, using barely any of their strength to do as the minibot had asked. They continued to watch him carefully. Was this a life that they had inadvertently ruined?

"Thanks," mumbled Ice Blink, optics shuttering involuntarily as recharge beckoned. "'M jus' gonna shutter m' optics for a bit." His optics offlined as he slumped on the berth, slowly maneuvering into a more comfortable position, his faceplates troubled as recharge claimed him. Seemingly unconsciously, the mech's servo moved forward and crossed the now small gap between the two medical berths, finding his brothers mostly repaired servo and holding it in his own, curling around the stolen appendage as if it was his lifeline.

The twins continued watching in silence as the minibots recharged. No, Ice Blink would never survive without his brother. They might as well have killed them both.

"It's not your fault."

Sideswipe turned to see Jazz leaning against the closed doors of the medbay.

"Didn't hear you come in," the red frontliner murmured with downcast optics.

Jazz chuckled mirthlessly. "That's the point. Ops, remember?"

Sunstreaker turned his helm away, staring fixedly at a wall as if it had mortally offended him. "That's what Ice Blink said."

The waning smile fell completely from the saboteur's faceplates. He took a step towards the pair of minibots with a now terribly sad and grim expression. "They're so close...other than Stryker, they're all that they've ever had. I...I don't even wanna think 'bout what'll happen if I loose 'em. They're just younglings, in the end. Well, not technically, but you know what I mean."

Sideswipe frowned and gritted his denta, shuttering his optics so he didn't have to look at the third in command. "I'm sorry..._we're_ sorry. We...we didn't think before we looked at those recordings, and now they're hurt and it's all our fault."

Jazz was shaking his helm from the first "sorry."

"It's not your fault; don't you ever start thinkin' that. From what I can gather, Soundwave had always intended to return to the work site, he just wanted to pick up his cassettes first so he didn't have to leave them alone on the _Nemesis_. None of the 'Cons saw you two playing back the video, and I trust that you haven't told anyone." He sent a meaningful glance at the two through his ever-present visor.

"No, of course not!" Sunstreaker interjected. "We're ignorant afts, but we aren't that bad!"

The saboteur nodded. "I thought as much. So it wasn't your faults, ya hear? It was bad luck, nothing more."

The twins nodded, and the three were silent as they watched Ice Blink shift in his recharge, clutching Pyro's servo a little closer with a contented smile on his faceplates.

Jazz nodded to nothing in particular. "He's an optimist, Blinks is. He's sure Pyro will pull through. We just gotta be like him, believe that 'Ro will pull through and we'll get Stryker back and everything will work out in the end."

Sunstreaker finally brought himself to bring his optics up to meet Jazz's visor. "And if optimism doesn't work?"

The shorter mech turned his helm away, refusing to look at Sunstreaker for the fear of that gesture somehow acknowledging the idea.

"It has to. It's all we've got."

* * *

Soundwave had to return to duty. After all, Megatron would soon notice his missing shadow, and the tyrant was anxious to hear what information the telepath had gathered from their prisoner. With reluctance the TIC left the Autobot in his cell, reactivating the cell's security and the camera feeds as he left without a word. His cassettes all left with him, leaving the Ops mech in Ramjet's care, as the Seeker had entered the room for his shift as the telepath was leaving.

He was sure to enter extra security codes to the cell's keypad, ensuring that nobody could get out – or in – unless they had Soundwave's codes or those of Megatron or Starscream, all of whom would never pass their private override codes out to their underlings. Good; Soundwave didn't need to be worrying after Stryker's health while on duty. He needed to be able to put all of his focus on the Decepticon cause.

Stryker, too, was doing a lot of thinking. He smirked when he imagined Pyro commenting, "Oh, _that's_ where that smoke was coming from." Primus, he missed the twins.

And to see them again, he needed to get the frag out of here. He was done beating himself up for the time being – getting himself injured would only make his stay here longer and would keep him from leaving.

Actually...

Injuring himself might be the best thing to do. Then he would be taken to the Decepticons' medbay, and then he could make a break for it. Ramjet was a little bit smaller than him – if he pulled this off correctly, he could potentially overpower him.

"Best not to get cocky," his inner-Jazz commented. "Never judge your enemies by size unless you want to get slagged over for your assumptions. After all, look at me. I'm short and I can still kick your afts."

Stryker chuckled to himself. "Don't I know it," he murmured.

Ramjet stopped in his ravings about his boredom to his trinemates and shot an annoyed glance at the prisoner. When no more was said, he simply shook his helm. "Crazy Autobot..."

The Ops agent didn't notice the Seeker's comment, nor would he have cared about it. He had a plan to start.

How to injure himself? He could continue beating his helm, but no, that would take too long and frankly he enjoyed not messing up his processors more than they already were. So what to do?

His weapons had been taken from him and his subspace had been emptied. But...had they realized...? A servo was subtly slid down to his waist, checking a gap between the armor there. No, they hadn't, thank Primus. He had a chance, after all.

Shortly after being recruited by Jazz, Stryker had been fitted with a few spaces on his chassis where the armor was double-layered. That way, small weapons could be slipped into these pockets, keeping them from his protoform while also blocking the weapons from appearing on scans, due to the heavy armor that concealed them. It was, to say the least, a fairly foolproof idea.

Making sure Ramjet had his back turned – and was it amusing to watch him throw his arms up in annoyance as he continued his complaining tirade to his trine – Stryker slipped his servo into one of the concealed spots on his armor and pulled from it a small energon blade.

Being sure to keep his back to the camera as he moved, he sliced into some of the major energon lines on his arms, wincing with each cut. He had a threshold for pain, but he would be the first to admit that it was fairly low – he could lie like the best, but he had a hard time keeping discomfort from his features. Even the twins could beat him when it came to pain tolerance, but right now, he would just have to deal.

Carefully slipping the blade back into his "pocket" the mech then slumped against the wall as if he was tired with his back still to the camera, so whoever watched the feed couldn't immediately guess he was injured and search him for weapons. Slowly and leisurely he turned so his back was fully against the wall; he was now facing the pacing Seeker on guard and in full view of the camera. Idly he rubbed his neck cables as if they were tensed and annoying him, waiting for someone to notice the injuries he feigned to have no knowledge of.

Ramjet continued to pace, and on one of his turns on his thruster he realized that there was a pink splash of color in the prisoner's cell that hadn't been there before. He paused in his steps to get a better look.

Energon streamed down the mech's arms as he leaned against the cell wall, a lethargic glint to his optics. The Seeker cursed.

"Holy Primus, what did you fragging _do_ to yourself? Better yet, _how_ did you do that?"

The mech looked at him with a dumb look on his faceplates. "What? What happened?"

"How is it that everyone's spreading these rumors about _you_ being Special Operations? I'll have to tell them that they're wrong, of course. Fraggit, why isn't the slagging code working?" Ramjet was trying to get the cell open so he could drag the idiotic Autobot to see Hook, but the set codes weren't working. "Slagging Soundwave..."

He com'ed Starscream and told him he needed the override code because "the slagging stupid Autoscum had somehow hurt himself, and Soundwave had put in the 'Command Only' block." The second in command told him to deal with the problem himself – he wasn't taking Megatron's anger when something went wrong because the prisoner got loose. He then deactivated his com before Ramjet could comment that he would still be blamed if the prisoner deactivated from energon loss.

Stryker was inwardly wincing. This wasn't going to plan at all. He hadn't known that Soundwave had entered an extra code. How was his plan going to work now?

A small idea came to him. It was a long shot, but he was bleeding out thanks to his own half-baked plan and had nothing to lose at this point. Trying to subtly move his servo, he tapped idly at a section of energon-soaked wrist armor before slipping his digits underneath the metal. Yet another hidden device, a small computer that could "communicate" with other nearby computers. It probably wasn't powerful enough to override a command-level code, but there was a chance.

Slipping out the edge of the device so he could type into it, Stryker did so, hoping Ramjet's calls to his superiors for assistance would distract him enough from his prisoner's movements. The device sent out a query of sorts to the lock, which "replied" that there was a command level code topping off the normal locking code. Another query was sent to see if the command code could be "demoted" to a lower level. His device flashed ACCESS DENIED.

Well, it didn't have to get snippy with him. Before Ramjet could notice, he slipped the device back into his armor. There went that idea.

This was so not going as planned. He probably shouldn't have cut so many lines, but he had never done that before and had expected a quicker reaction from his captors. But now it fragging hurt! He was doing everything in his power to keep from, Primus forbid, crying, but he could feel the cleaning fluid building up near his optics. He hated this, feeling weak, _being_ weak. None of this was following the plan.

He was supposed to cut his lines, get Ramjet's attention, get released from the cell and led into the main parts of the base, and then he would overpower Ramjet and make a run for it. Obviously, since only steps one and two had been achieved, this wasn't working so well.

Ramjet cursed loudly. "That's it, I'm calling Megatron."

Stryker winced inwardly and outwardly. This was _so_ not going as he had planned.

* * *

Soundwave was quite pleased with himself. He had informed Megatron of what he knew about "Jazz's Boys" and what had happened in his experiences with them so far, minus his..._odd_ feelings for Stryker, and to his concealed delight, Megatron seemed to be agreeing with him.

"So you really think this Stryker can be swayed to the Decepticons?" Megatron inquired, one silver servo supporting his chin, which he rubbed at thoughtfully.

"Affirmative. Stryker: Unknown to Autobots; has no connections to them. Motives: Controlled by self-preservation and close comrades."

"And these close comrades are those twins you mentioned?" Soundwave merely nodded. "Minibots. I hate minibots. But if you succeed with this one, I'll think about it."

Soundwave was _very_ pleased with the way things were going, and tried pushing his luck. "Minibot twins: Could help move things along."

"Or they could try teaming up with our captive, seeing that he is their leader, and try to escape; but if we brought him to our side first, he could help bring _them_ in turn."

The telepath nodded again. He couldn't deny the pure logic in that statement.

Megatron stayed silent for a moment longer in thought before speaking. "Because you have never asked something like this before, and because you haven't failed me yet, I'll allow your little experiment to see if we can bring an Autobot to our side. I expect this little arrangement to not affect the work of any Decepticon, Soundwave. You and all of your cassettes must continue performing your duties just as well as you have thus far, as should all Decepticons involved in this experiment. And I expect to see results, Soundwave. I'm placing my trust in you as my third in command. Do not fail me."

"Affirmative. Lord Megatron's trust: Not misplaced." He hated that Megatron referred to the whole thing as an experiment, but he couldn't tell his leader that Stryker meant a little more than that to him. Maybe more than a little, but he wasn't willing to admit that to even himself, let alone the Lord High Protector. Besides, the Decepticon cause had to come first, no matter what.

"Good. See to it that – what the slag do you want, Ramjet?" Megatron listened to his internal com, occasionally responding out loud and unintentionally clueing Soundwave in on what he was discussing; Megatron was the only mech whose mind he would not invade without permission, and he was rarely allowed in it.

"Why are you calling me about this? Call Hook if the idiot hurt himself!"

Hurt himself? How could Stryker have hurt himself? He had no weapons! And it was undoubtedly Stryker, because Ramjet was alone with him. If the Seeker had somehow touched him...

"Command codes? What do you – oh. _Those_ command codes. Why don't you ask Starscream? ...Of course not. Fine, I'm sending Soundwave down." With that, he cut the link and turned to Soundwave.

"Apparently our prisoner harmed himself and Ramjet didn't even notice it until he was leaking energon everywhere. See to it that our 'guest' gets to the medbay."

"Yes, Lord Megatron." With that, Soundwave swept out of the room, his CPU on overdrive. Leaking energon all over? How bad was it? How had he even hurt himself in the first place?

He was soon standing in front of Stryker's cell, and it _was _bad. There were cuts and incisions to most of his major energon lines in his arms, obviously a deliberate effort. But why? Stryker wasn't suicidal, and his depression wouldn't lead to self-harm; his mind was bad, but it wasn't _that_ messed up. So how had he done it, and why?

Leaving these questions for a later time when he could interrogate the green mech and get into his CPU, Soundwave entered his codes into the cell, easily gaining access and entering the cell, ignoring a grumbling Ramjet as he passed him.

Stryker had puddles of energon on either side of him, and his normally vibrant blue optics were dim and half-shuttered. The only thought the telepath could get from his was _"So not what I planned."_

Well that answered something. Whatever it was that he had planned, it had been inadvertently foiled and had backfired on the Autobot, so it seemed.

He stepped up to the tall green mech who was slumped against the wall with his knees drawn to his chest plating, his arms resting lightly on top of them. Soundwave stood in front of his newly appointed charge and watched him. "Your cooperation: Requested."

"Your request: Denied," replied the Autobot mockingly. Soundwave vented air to calm himself and then reached down, gripping Stryker by the shoulder and bodily yanking him to a stand, careful not to aggravate the wounds on his lower arms. A pair of stasis cuffs would only rub against the wounds more, and while some Decepticons would have relished the increased pain, Soundwave didn't. Plus, it only would have made him bleed out faster. Instead, he kept a firm grip on the Autobots servos, keeping them trapped against the small of his back while he pushed the mech from the cell.

"Ramjet: Assist," he ordered the Seeker, who grudgingly obliged, staying close by so he could grab at the Autobot if he tried anything on the way to the medbay.

Stryker wasn't sure if he should curse or smile. His plan was succeeding, in a way, but he was feeling just a bit too sluggish to pull this off. Yeah, he definitely shouldn't have cut so many lines. He frowned at himself, but then decided to lighten up. He couldn't take down both Ramjet and Soundwave on a good orn, anyway. Ramjet, probably, but he could only take out Soundwave if he had some sort of advantage to start with before the fight. Considering he didn't, he just had to deal and move on, making another plan.

Soundwave himself frowned behind his mouthguard. So Stryker had injured himself somehow as a part of a plan to escape. Well, it was a good thing he had entered in his command codes. He needed to remain extra vigilant from now on, especially if Megatron was going to allow Soundwave to attempt to assimilate Stryker into the Decepticons.

He would not fail in this effort. He could not fail, not only for Megatron's sake, but for himself. For Stryker.

He refused to lose his prize.

* * *

**I'm shocked that I was able to write this whole thing in one day; usually I take more than one day to write a full chapter. Now I'm feeling extra proud.**

**Please review!**


	7. Concerning the Emotions of Injured Twins

**Mmm, sorry about how long this has taken. School restarted, which means projects and – oh joy! – weekly homework on the computer has taken up my already limited writing-time. Seriously, we're sharing one laptop for five people because my father is too much of a jerk to get the desktop computer fixed because it doesn't directly affect him, because he has **_**his own**_** laptop. You can guess my feelings on the subject.**

**Anyways, here's a funfact for you all, courtesy of tech class: my group overloaded an interface card last week. You read that right. We overloaded the interface card – on accident mind you – and I turned to the guys and said, "Do you smell something burning?" They, of course, ignored me until our circuit wasn't working. Then, after troubleshooting, one of them unplugged it (and by it I mean the interface cable XD) and smelled it before passing it off to the other guy, who agreed with him that yes, it did smell heavily like burning plastic. And then we took it to our teacher, who said that no, it wasn't normal for it to smell like that. He then congratulated us for overloading it. XD I giggle every time I think about it. That's right, we effectively permanently broke a piece of $300 equipment (it was the old ones, anyway, the keep the new ones for the other course I'm in) and I think it's funny because Transformers has led me to have...**_**odd**_** thoughts when I hear the words "interface" and "overload"...and together...I just can't stop laughing!**

**Now, review replies. This first one is a reply and a message to you all so I don't need to say this ever again.**

_**Bob**_**: Listen up, one and all. Yes, I am highly aware that the name Pyro is also used by a canon character in the comics. I was not aware of it at the time that my Pyro was created because the canon character is not well known and I checked the archive's list of names to see if the name was used, and it wasn't there – again, because most people don't know about canon Pyro, **_**Bob**_**. When I did discover, before your review, I might add, that there **_**was**_** a canon Pyro, I thought that I wouldn't need to say anything because I – apparently too hastily – assumed that people who knew the canon character and actually **_**bothered**_** to read all the way through my story and not just the first chapter could fairly easily tell that my Pyro was not at all a Prime-worshipper and look-alike, and thus could not be anything like the canon Pyro, or a copy of him. Think of it this way, **_**Bob**_** – Transformers have a large population. So do humans. Plenty of humans have the name "Bob," for example – then, doesn't it make sense that some Cybertronians would also share names, even, just possibly, the name Pyro? Yeah, that's what I thought. So please people, don't ever again ask me about this, because if you cared about the story you'd read the whole thing and know for yourself that the characters are nothing alike and that the name similarity is purely coincidental. If I get another comment about this, I'm going to start assuming – ah, there's that word again – that you must be lacking a little mentally or just trying to rile me up, in which case I will simply laugh.**

***Sighs* Now that that's done!**

_**Starfire201**_**: Thank you for both the review and the birthday wishes! They're both very much appreciated.**

**Disclaimer:**** I don't own Transformers or any of its characters, but I do own Stryker, Pyro, Ice Blink, and anyone who you don't know.**

* * *

Ice Blink sat on the repair berth, swinging his newly repaired legs back and forth idly, testing them to be sure they had regained full mobility and that everything was working properly. It seemed to be, he thought, as he let the momentum increase, causing his whole chassis to start up a rocking motion. The white minibot kept it up, swinging his legs in alternating arcs, doing his best to focus on the feeling of gravity on his legs and the brush of air over the moving appendages – anything to keep his mind off of its biggest, now constant worry.

It had been nearly three deca-orns since the twins had been brought to the _Ark_, and Pyro still hadn't woken up.

The entire time the pair of minibot brothers had been on the Autobot flagship, not even a tiny jump had appeared on the monitor attached to the black minibot's CPU. There was no sign of conscious or unconscious activity, no signal that the mech was dreaming or having memory purges, nothing to show that the mech was having any form of a thought at all.

There was nothing on the monitor, and nothing in Ice Blink's spark.

He felt like he was dying.

For their entire lives, Ice Blink and Pyro had been just that: Ice Blink and Pyro. Sometimes they were Pyro and Ice Blink, or 'Ro and Blinks, or some variation of it all, but they had always been together; it had seemed to be a simple fact of the universe that where one was, the other had to be. In Ice Blink's mind it was a scientific law, a fact that could not be disproven.

Until now, that was.

While the twins may have been together physically – Ice Blink had yet to be released from the medbay, and frankly he didn't want to leave without his brother – they certainly weren't together in the way that they should have been. That was because for the first time in the twins' combined existence, one was not with the other, at least not in their sparks.

Ever since that terrible attack by the Decepticons, the one that had brutally injured the twins and stolen Stryker away from them, Ice Blink had been alone in his spark, and he felt like a piece of him was missing. It wasn't like an amputated limb with a phantom itch; no, it felt like someone had ripped away a part of his spark, telling him that his brother was gone and dead, and was then taunting him by placing his twin right in front of him in what should have been working condition. Sure, Pyro's legs were still being constructed, but from what he had overheard Ratchet telling Optimus Prime, Pyro should have onlined by now, legs or not.

But he hadn't, and Ice Blink was still left all alone with a large, gaping, horrifically painful hole in his spark that he couldn't do anything about.

The small mech had done everything he could. He had sat with his brother for joors on end, talking to him, holding his servo, snuggling up next to him, anything that might have received some sort of acknowledgement on that simple little monitor. None of it had worked.

He'd tried reaching out to his brother through their bond, only to hit a dreadful breach in the line, a gash of a wound that was so deeply carved in the bond that Ice Blink had to wonder if it was really more of a ragged slice than just a cut. Maybe it was a complete sever and the reason that he couldn't feel Pyro was because he was spark-dead and-

No, he couldn't think like that. He couldn't give up hope, because if he did, he just might fall apart.

But he couldn't ignore that it was a possibility.

Ratchet and his assistants weren't always in the medbay; even when on call, they weren't required to be there at all joors of an orn. That meant that Ice Blink was often left alone, tragically alone with nothing but his comatose brother and his own morbid thoughts. He would do anything to pull himself away from his own mind, including hacking into Ratchet's medical files. The minibot told himself that it was just for the challenge of first trying to reach the terminal while he couldn't walk and then to see if he could properly hack into the _Ark_'s systems without being caught, but he knew that was a lie when he found himself eagerly scanning Pyro's file.

He hadn't liked what he'd found.

_Possibly spark-dead_, the file had listed. Spark-dead? What could that mean? And how could Pyro be spark-dead if he could see his spark working right in front of him, a machine pushing it to pulse? Ice Blink may not have been able to feel his brother's spark, but he knew that it was still there.

So he had searched through files upon files, trying to locate anything on that new term that left him with an awful sense of foreboding. To his luck, or most likely misfortune, he found something.

Spark-dead was a term used for when a Cybertronian was, for all intents and purposes, deactivated but still had a running chassis. In many cases, usually after severe trauma, the patient would simply have passed on in essence, but their physical spark would still be present, most likely because it was hooked up to a machine, as Pyro's was. The spark was still alive, but the soul it had once held was not, meaning that the entire body was running on autopilot and the CPU held no real thought processes.

All of it was too eerily similar to Pyro's situation, and Ice Blink had wanted to turn and run as he read, to go curl up next to his brother, shutter his optics and remember the good old orns, back when it was just the three of them, just Pyro, Ice Blink and Stryker against the world, doing their jobs while having fun and being that family that they had all craved.

But that was gone now, cruelly ripped from his servos, leaving him with a broken mockery of the original.

Stryker had been taken by the Decepticons, and there had been no ransom note, no message from the Decepticons even solely for the purpose of gloating. There had been absolutely nothing, leading many of the Autobot officers to expect the worst. Ice Blink, in his worse moments, wondered if they were even still trying at all to save his leader and close friend.

So Stryker was missing and quite possibly deactivated, Pyro was most likely as good as deactivated, and Ice Blink? Well, he was just as useless as always, a waste of space that couldn't do anything without being instructed, and even then he tended to fail at his task due to his own sheer stupidity and lack of skill. Sometimes he wondered if he would even make good cannon fodder, or if he could somehow mess that up, too.

In the end, everything added up to Ice Blink being alone. Stryker was most likely dead and according to Ratchet's files Pyro wasn't ever going to wake up. So why was he even bothering to pretend that he was okay when on the inside his spark was constantly burning with the need to leave before he could be left?

Ratchet entered the medbay from his office, looking up from the datapad he was reviewing to see that his patient was testing his legs. He smiled, actually, genuinely smiled at the young mech who he had been looking after for the last few deca-orns. Ice Blink, knowing Ratchet's reputation, assumed that this meant he was getting special treatment, and then assumed it would be because the mech pitied him. But pity or not, he enjoyed the attention. _Selfish slagger_, he thought of himself.

"Everything working?" Ratchet asked as he subspaced the datapad and came closer to the berth. He placed a servo on the minibot's calf and stretched the appendage out until Ice Blink's leg was straight and then prodded his knee with his other servo, checking to be sure everything was functioning properly.

"I think so," Ice Blink replied, slapping on a merry smile. Oh yeah, this was why he kept up his ruse of happiness; these Autobots, Ratchet especially, had been so kind to him since he arrived on the _Ark_. It may have all been from pity, but they were constantly telling him how strong and brave he was for holding out without his brother this long, and well, he wished desperately that he could live up to their expectations, so he did his best to act the part they had assigned him.

The CMO grunted noncommittally in response as he continued poking and prodding the minibot. "Lay back, I want to check your spinal relays."

Ice Blink complied, losing his smile as he laid back. If Pyro didn't get better, if they never got Stryker back – would any of this be worth it? It would be a shame, all of Ratchet's hard work going to waste, but Ice Blink was the first to admit that he was quite useless without his brother and his leader.

If, in a happy, perfect world, Pyro did recover without a hitch, and Stryker was retrieved from the Decepticons in a perfectly healthy, physically fine and mentally stable state, what would the trio do next? They had never done anything outside of their Ops work; they didn't know how to be real soldiers. They just knew how to get in and get the job done.

But that wouldn't work now. No, all of the Decepticons had most likely been made aware of them and the Autobots would find out soon enough. After all, it was only for so long that the twins could be hidden away in the medbay, and Primus knew how many mechs had questioned who they were and their purpose on the _Ark_.

Yet there was the problem itself: Jazz's Boys no longer _had _a purpose. In fact, Jazz's Boys didn't even really exist anymore. Stryker was gone, Pyro was almost gone, Ice Blink _wished_ he was gone – yep, that didn't really leave much in the way of a team. Even then, there was the issue of their blown cover. They could never go back to Ops, the only lives they knew.

So what would they do next, deskwork? Ice Blink let out a derisive bark of laughter, drawing an odd look from Ratchet that the minibot failed to notice due to his inner rant. The three of them, the supposed elite of the Autobots' Special Operations forces, reduced to performing menial _deskwork?_ The mere thought of it was horrifying, and yet it was their most likely future.

The Boys had never been properly trained as soldiers. In fact, they had never been properly trained in much of anything. They didn't know how to fight, neither in close quarters nor at a distance. All they knew how to do was brawl, and something told Ice Blink that battles against the Decepticons weren't like bar fights.

Outside of Ops, the three had no discernable talents. It was like they had been _made_ for Ops, and without it, they were just a couple of useless, replaceable desk-jockeys.

Replaceable, yes, that's what they were. The three were unknown until now, and now that their secret was out, someone would need to replace them, to fill in Jazz's need for information agents. And what would happen then? Would they still be Autobots without having ever really officially joined? Would they be dumped somewhere without a credit to their names? Would Jazz even acknowledge that he had known them, once upon a time?

He hadn't as of yet. Jazz hadn't once come to visit Ice Blink or Pyro in the medbay, and that smarted more than the minibot wanted to admit. But he had thought that Jazz could at least be called a friend, and as the only mech the minibots knew on the _Ark_ he should have at least stopped by.

No visit had come, though. Not even a note saying "hello" or "get well soon." There had been nothing, and Ice Blink, for all of his stupidity, understood this for what it was: Jazz's Boys was truly done and over with and the three were no longer wanted. It was as simple as that, really. The trio wasn't needed anymore, as they no longer provided use to the Autobots. Really, they should have seen this coming.

"But I'm such an idiot I let them fool me into believing it was real." He had let them get to him, get under his plating and make him think that he mattered. Oh, he should have remembered that Jazz wasn't the leader of Special Operations for sitting on his aft all day.

"Excuse me?"

Ice Blink jolted back to the present with the incredulous words. "W-what?" he stuttered in surprise, optics wide as he sat up on his forearms.

"What was that you said?"

"Said?" squeaked the minibot. "I didn't say anything." He racked his processors for what he could have possibly verbalized. It hadn't been on purpose, that was for sure.

"You said something about being an idiot and letting someone 'fool you into believing it was real.' Now, who was fooling you into what?"

Ice Blink quailed at the idea of sharing his inner-turmoil. It was just something that _wasn't done_. Besides, he couldn't let them think he was weak now, not when he was already in a vulnerable position!

"Oh, that?" he laughed, letting out an airy, nonchalant chuckle. "I'm sorry, I was just referring to this one case with the Decepticons. I let them get the best of me when I really should have known better."

Ratchet stared at the mech with a bored expression as he gestured for him to roll over, giving the medic better access to his spinal struts. "Yeah, nice story kid, but I wasn't asking for one; I want to know what you were _really _talking about."

The minibot kept up his false smile. "I don't know what you mean-"

"Yes you do. What, you think I can't tell when a mech is lying by now? I'm a walking lie detector, youngling. Even Jazz can't get much by me, and Mirage and Bumblebee don't stand a chance – don't think that you're much better."

_That's right, Ice Blink, don't go thinking that you're better than others when you're quite obviously not..._

"Stop that!" The small spy yelped as an instrument came into contact with his helm, _hard_. He flinched as he saw the medic raise the wench in the air again, just waiting for a reason to continue using it.

"What was that for?" he whined, bringing a white servo up to rub against his sore helm.

"That was for that weird mumbling you do. You weren't even paying attention to me anymore!" The CMO huffed as he continued tapping at the struts, testing their strength and flexibility.

Ice Blink paused. "Mumbling? I don't mumble."

_If you did, it would be just one more thing to add on top of your list of inadequacies._

"You're doing it again!" growled the medic, brandishing his trademark wrench threateningly. His patient flinched again. At the upset look in the small mech's optics, Ratchet slowly lowered the wrench. He sighed loudly and stared the minibot directly in the optics. "Seriously, what's up with the mumbling?"

"I don't know," mumbled the spy embarrassedly, trying to avert his optics. "I never noticed it before...I don't think I used to do it, Pyro would have complained by now..."

Ratchet was the one to avert his gaze. Quirky new traits often arose when a mech was dealing with a traumatic experience. Mumbling to himself seemed to be just one of Ice Blink's.

"Stand," he barked at the minibot without malice. The mech did so easily, proving just how far he had come since his arrival on the _Ark_. "Turn and touch your pedes."

Ice Blink gave him an incredulous and amused look; Ratchet huffed in annoyance.

"I'm trying to check that everything is in proper alignment! Primus, dealing with you is like dealing with Sideswipe!"

_I bet it is...but now there's a difference between you and Sideswipe: Sideswipe has a twin, and you don't..._

"You have a twin," Ratchet grumbled as he ran his digits down the mech's spinal struts in a detached, clinical manner. "He's over on the berth over there, and by Primus you aren't going to forget it."

Ice Blink flinched a third time, finally realizing just _what_ he'd been vocalizing subconsciously. Turning around he began, "I...I didn't meant that-"

Ratchet shot the minibot and unreadable look. "I know you weren't trying to forget him, but let me say this: I don't like self-deprecation. It's unhealthy, pointless, and completely untrue – plus it royally frags me off. You are not the reason that your twin is in this state, and it is not your fault that your leader is missing. If anyone's to blame, it's the Decepticons. Your only mission has been to get well, and you've been doing a phenomenal job at that. I don't want to hear any survivor's guilt from you because nobody has offlined and you have nothing to be guilty about, got it?"

With wide optics, the minibot nodded. "I just...I'm nothing without Pyro..."

"Shush. Would Pyro let you say that?" Ice Blink shook his helm slowly. "Then what makes you think he'd want you saying it when he's not around to tell you otherwise?"

The minibot didn't reply, but he nodded slowly before freezing. "What...what'll I do now, though? I've got no training and my job is gone, and Jazz won't even talk to me anymore-"

"What do you mean about Jazz?" Ratchet had noticed that the TIC had yet to visit the medbay, but he didn't want to bring it up, lest the minibot get upset. Apparently he had already realized the lack of his superior's presence.

"He just...I thought he would have come by, you know? But he hasn't, and I can understand that, 'cause he's gotta go find some replacements for us and all and he's got a job to do, he doesn't have time to hang around us."

Ratchet simply stared at the mech before placing a warm servo on his shoulder to draw the white mech's attention. "It still doesn't give him the right to ignore you."

"It's okay," Ice Blink murmured with a small smile. "Really."

The CMO grunted disbelievingly, but noticing the minibot's unhappiness, he changed the subject. "Everything seems to be in working order. I can officially discharge you from the medbay now."

Ice Blink looked taken aback and nervous. "But – but what about Pyro? And where will I stay? And, and Pyro, he might-"

"You can still recharge in the medbay, you know," Ratchet grumbled. "I just meant that you could leave and look around the base a bit. You can still come see your brother whenever you'd like."

The minibot looked up. "Really?"

"No, I'm lying. Yes, really! Now get out of here and make some friends or something. I can't just have you moping in my medbay all day, now can I?" He forcefully but gently spun the minibot around and steered him towards the door, not releasing him until he was safely out of the medbay.

His task done, Ratchet turned around and slumped against the wall next to the door. That poor mech had such potential in him for great things, but he couldn't see it. Without his brother back, Ratchet feared he never would.

* * *

Pyro was not happy. Then again, the majority of half-deactivated mechs weren't happy with their lot in, well, not life, exactly, but maybe existence. Considering Pyro was never very happy in the first place, his new state was not much different from the norm. But it didn't change just how irritable the black minibot was feeling.

He had onlined to a dark room, or at least what he had thought to be a dark room. Looking around, he'd realized that there were a few problems: one, he didn't know this room, two, his brother looked to be in bad shape, and three, _his pedes weren't touching the fragging ground!_

That was the moment when Pyro realized just how bad his situation was. He appeared to be floating above some sort of medbay, a state-of-the-art one if he was seeing things correctly. There were only two patients, and he identified them with a sick sensation in what he guessed to be his tanks – if he wasn't tangible, as he'd assumed, then he was probably feeling a phantom sensation brought on by his CPU's need for normal sensory input, and slagged if he knew where a thought process like that came from.

The only patients of the medbay were Ice Blink and Pyro himself. Ice Blink was laying on a berth in a pained, uncomfortable position – Pyro knew it was uncomfortable because Ice Blink could never sleep comfortably without having his arms curled around something, hugging it to his helm. Given that he had no such material and one of his servos was injured, added to the fact that he couldn't twist his legs up as usual due to some damage to one of his thighs, it appeared that his twin wasn't in very good shape, and was feeling it even in recharge. Sending a glance at his own body with a detached, clinical look, Pyro realized that he was even worse off than his brother.

With his lower half missing and his remaining chassis scarred, dented and an overall mess, Pyro immediately understood that something was severely wrong with him, enough so that his spark seemed to have vacated his body. And apparently there was nothing more he – or anyone else, for that matter – could do about it. It seemed that Pyro himself just wasn't onlining, even when he should have regained consciousness by now, at least for a short while.

Pyro did everything he could think of to get back in his chassis. He sat on it, he sat next to it, he laid over it, under it, _in _it, and yet none of these things brought him back into his own body. It was like he was effectively a ghost and could do nothing more than float over objects to avoid passing through them.

Grueling orns passed in the medbay, leaving Pyro bored out of his mind. His only solace was watching his brother, which wasn't too interesting considering Ice Blink seemed to be experiencing the same issue, just on the physical plane. The black minibot began spending his orns watching his brother and ensuring his safety and wellbeing, and he occasionally took trips around the _Ark_ to get the lay of it and to, ahem, watch its inhabitants. He was in Ops, all right? They like their in-depth intel.

It disconcerted Pyro to see how Ice Blink behaved without him. His twin had never looked so lost before, never. Pyro was used to his brother being comfortable in every situation they had ever encountered, but seeing him now, the way he kept to himself, often curled up on a berth, fearful of touching anything lest something bad happen? This wasn't at all like his brother.

The night when Ice Blink hacked into Ratchet's medical files had almost made Pyro feel relieved – he relished the familiar idea of his brother hacking files for information. But what his twin looked up and his reaction to it, well, Ice Blink wasn't the only one upset by the ordeal.

More than ever, Pyro had wished he still had his connection with his brother.

The connection was still there, and would be as long as his spark was, but the black minibot couldn't feel his twin through their bond. It was like someone had numbed the invisible line tying the two brothers together. When Pyro tried using it to contact his brother, it was like shouting down an endless tunnel. His words bounced around and echoed back at him, but the only response he received was from himself.

It was a feeling that no mech, Autobot or Decepticon, should ever have to experience.

He watched, screaming in silence, as his twin fell into a state of depression and self-deprecation. Oh, Ice Blink _knew_ how he felt about that. As he always told his twin, if he didn't let other mechs insult his twin, what made Ice Blink think that he was allowed to insult himself?

Yet he could do nothing but watch Ice Blink start mumbling to himself, muttering dark things that should never have passed through his bubbly twin's processors.

It was to Pyro's great delight that Ratchet – and he wasn't sure how he felt about the medic, but he liked that he at least was good to his brother, and was trying to help – let Ice Blink leave the medbay. His bro needed a little pick-me-up, and interaction was always the best when Blinks was in a down mood.

He just wished he could be there with him.

* * *

**For **_**Dark Pasts**_** fans: why yes, Pyro **_**is**_** in the Between! And no, he won't be seeing anybody there, 'Con or 'Bot. ;) I'm bad, but I'm not that bad. Besides, Echo already exemplified placing your own characters in different stories in one of my crackfics – I'd be a hypocrite if I did it now.**

**Next chapter will have more fun with Stryker – I planned to put a scene with him here, but the twins just needed some more attention.**

**Please review!**


	8. Ideally

**This chapter was on the short side, and it took me a hell of a long time to get out. But look, here it is! And it's full of angst. Like, enough angst to last us all a lifetime. And it's a bit sappy. Okay, more than a bit. But I think it turned out well enough.**

**Mm, something I forgot to mention last chapter in the midst of the Pyro-name-rant? Ice Blink's name is borrowed from the book **_**Julie's Wolf Pack**_** by Jean Craighead George, which was my favorite book as a kid. This is just to be preemptive, in case anyone else says, "Uh, hey, did you know that the name Ice Blink is already in use somewhere?" Yeah, by a rabid white she-wolf who dies of rabies by the end of the book. But of course, my Ice Blink **_**is**_** something of a rabid she-wolf, soo... I can see the resemblance. -_-**

**Disclaimer:**** I don't own Transformers or any of its characters, but I do own Stryker, Pyro, Ice Blink, and anyone who you don't know.**

* * *

Stryker was bored. Seriously, horribly bored.

If he had to be locked up on the _Nemesis, _couldn't they give him _something_ to do? Really, filing datapads would be a dream compared to this slag.

Bondage really wasn't his thing.

"There's no need to impress your kinks upon me!" he called out loudly, half-lit optics roving lazily over the ceiling above him. He pressed against the bonds holding his extremities to the medical berth once more in emphasis of his dislike for his plight before slumping lethargically back on the berth.

This was the, what, seventh time he had ended up like this? No, that was right, this was the _eighth_ time – time number seven was the one with the garbage shoot and the rocket launcher. So this was the eighth botched escape attempt that ended with Stryker drugged up and tied to a medical berth while his self-repairs finished fixing up whatever damage he'd managed to bring upon himself this time.

Stryker didn't know how long he had been prisoner on the _Nemesis_; he could only count orns by the patterns of Soundwave's recharge, and what the Pit was up with that, anyway? Why was he being held in Soundwave's _personal_ quarters as opposed to the brig?

He shuddered at the implications (in what way he'd rather not dwell), yet so far nothing had come from his change of location. _Let's hope to keep it that way_, he thought to himself, more to remind himself of that wish than to make a comment.

A purple and green smear passed the edge of his now-blurred vision. "Again?" asked a gruff, disbelieving voice.

"Not my fault," he grumbled defensively. "Leave me alone, Long Haul. Don't you have anything better to do?"

The blob huffed. "Scrapper said I have to sparklingsit your aft 'cause you keep denting it up on your own."

Stryker lifted a groggy optical ridge and flopped a useless servo to once again exemplify his bound state. "Uh, I'm good, but I ain't that good. 'S not like I'm going anywhere anytime soon."

"I noticed." The Autobot couldn't see it very well due to his drug-induced vision blob, but he could _feel_ the snide look being aimed at his tethered limbs.

"Yeah, yeah, yuck it up. Peevish little brat..."

"'Scuse me? If you haven't noticed, I'm more than twice your age-"

"And more than twice the brat that I am," Stryker quipped with a bit of a haughty tone, making his whole statement sound hypocritical. "I think that it increases with age."

"- and I can take your helm off of your shoulders on one of your good orns, never mind with you completely fragged over and tied down. Speaking of, what'd ya do to yourself this time?"

"Honestly? I can't remember. My CPU is like a giant globbish mass right now. Hehe, globbish mass. It's like it's redundant, because most globs are masses, and most masses are...wait, masses don't need to be globby..."

"And he's out," Long Haul muttered as the prisoner abruptly stopped speaking and fell offline, his helm falling to the side with such sudden force that it clanged in what had to be a painful way against the berth. "Great."

Now who was supposed to amuse him until Soundwave returned to pick up his pet?

* * *

The Decepticon third-in-command stalked down the twisting corridors of the _Nemesis_ feeling quite proud of himself.

So far he had kept all of Stryker's escape attempts contained to the hallway outside of his quarters and the one just off of it, and he had managed to do so while keeping the Autobot's "episodes" generally unknown. Only the command staff was aware of them, along with the Constructicons, who had come to know Stryker quite well given how much time he spent annoying them while they repaired him, and Soundwave's cassettes, who really couldn't have been kept out of the loop if the TIC had tried.

Now, if he could just keep the troublesome prisoner from escaping, he would be golden.

Soundwave strode into the medbay and quickly noted both the dull, bored look on Long Haul's faceplates which swiftly changed to relief upon spotting Soundwave, and the passed out form of Stryker with his glossa lolling out of the side of his mouth like a particularly dumb turbo-puppy.

Really, sometimes he had to wonder just how Jazz had found this one.

With a nod to the Constructicon that relieved him of his guard-duty, Soundwave approached the berth and began unfettering the green and black mech, who didn't once stir. He then scooped the considerable mass into his arms with what was becoming a practiced ease given how often this was occurring; he shifted the tall, bulky mech in his arms so he could at least see around him before making the rapid journey back to his quarters. It wouldn't do for a subordinate to see him now and start asking questions; they were already speculating enough.

Upon reaching his quarters Soundwave sent a silent access code. When the door whooshed open he made his way through.

Buzzsaw briefly lifted his helm from where it had been nestled under his wing in recharge from his position atop Soundwave's console. Seeing his leader and the Autobot, he quickly resumed the position. He was the only cassette there at the moment, aside from Ravage, who was around the quarters _somewhere_, probably curled in some obscure place – it changed by the orn. Laserbeak and Ratbat were out performing reconnaissance, and the twins were doing Primus-knew-what around base. Frankly, Soundwave didn't even want to know anymore.

He carried the Autobot past the recharging cassette and entered the berth-room off of the main room of his quarters. Once there, he gently deposited his charge on a berth in the corner.

Some would say that it was insane to keep a prisoner in one's own quarters, let alone unrestrained in the same room where one recharged.

Soundwave didn't give a frag.

He knew that, at least, the Autobot wouldn't be attacking his cassettes; Stryker saw them for the sparklings that they were and couldn't stand to harm them, bless his stupid Autobot morals. Secretly, it was something that Soundwave appreciated more than he let on.

He felt as if he could trust Stryker not to make some late-night attack on him. It may have been his telepathy or maybe it was just sheer stupidity, but something about Stryker showed that he didn't have it in him – wasn't tough enough, wasn't steeled enough – to harm a defenseless opponent, even when he was being held captive by said opponent. No, he wasn't enough of a Decepticon for that – yet.

And though Soundwave was supposed to be turning Stryker into a Decepticon, manipulating his anger and emotions until he _was_ a ruthless, unfeeling killer, for some reason his spark shriveled at the image of Stryker turning into _that_: just another mindless murderer for Megatron to use and throw away. There wouldn't be anymore of the laughing, the teasing, the jibes, the annoying remarks and that Primus-fragged _singing_ that sounded like Starscream after too much high grade in the dead of night right before important meetings and missions.

Somehow, Soundwave thought that he would miss that, if it were gone.

And thus his earlier goal was compacted, further proved by time and experience: Stryker wasn't leaving, ever.

That was it, that one simple line.

Because that way, Soundwave wouldn't have to be lonely again.

Some say that when you are surrounded by friends and loved ones, you can never be lonely. Soundwave had his cassettes as a family, and they were the closest things he could think of to friends. Megatron certainly wasn't a friend, he was a superior, and Starscream – well, he was Starscream. Self-serving, audacious, cunning, traitorous, annoying-as-Pit Starscream who, despite common belief, did have some loyalty, Soundwave had perceived, but that was only to seekers given their common heritage and his duty as their commander, and thus his private wish to keep them safe, and his trine, who the telepath suspected – and had proven, multiple times – were his only real companions. But his comrades? Starscream wouldn't have batted an optic shutter had they all fallen over deactivated next to him, so long as his interests were protected.

And thus, Soundwave was still lonely.

Soundwave was surrounded by a ship full of mechs that, save for two, were beneath him on the chain of command and had to concede to his whims by risk of punishment. At any moment he could have one of them..._ease_ _his loneliness_ in any way he saw fit, but if he was the kind of mech who did things like that, he would have gotten a whore over at the club he had found Stryker at. He wouldn't have to look _them_ in the faceplates every orn until one of them deactivated.

With Stryker though...well, Soundwave was still in denial that he felt anything at all for the Autobot. He was a prisoner, and that was that, he just wanted to bring him to the Decepticons because he was strong and had information and imagine the turmoil in the Autobot ranks and oh who the slag was he trying to fool? Soundwave didn't really give a flying frag about any of that. He liked the Autobot, plain and simple. It had been a long time since Soundwave had found himself _liking_ anybody _in that way_ – in fact, if he recalled his last true infatuation had been during his Academy years as a youngling – but with the Autobot, things were...calm.

Stryker was a lunatic, nobody could deny that. He had anger management issues and was spacey in the worst moments and was insufferably annoying and for some reason Soundwave found it endearing and just the teensiest, _tiniest_ bit cute. Not that he ever found things cute because he was, ahem, the Decepticon third-in-command and had superior powers of not-finding-things-cute.

His twins had informed him, quite haughtily and self-assuredly, that the reason he, ahem, _liked_ the Autodork (those were their exact words, "ahem" and all) was because the "giant green fragger was an orphan and had no family or home and Soundwave was just way too nice and protective and Primus-fragging _caring_ under his big mean growly Decepticon exterior and wanted to take care of the insane Autobrat."

Soundwave had promptly informed Frenzy and Rumble that he was a "big mean growly Decepticon" on the outside _and_ the inside and that they had best remember it, lest he "forget" to come save them when their next "game" resulted in them being chased by a horde of angry mechs out for their energon.

But he couldn't deny that there was a certain pull he felt with Stryker, an urge to protect. Maybe his twins were a bit right when they said that he felt he had found a kindred spark in Stryker; he knew what it was like to grow up on the streets, to need to create your own family from scratch.

That was why he was so adamant that they try to capture the minibot twins. Without them Stryker would never be fully content on the _Nemesis_. He would want to leave, leave Soundwave, and that just wouldn't do...

Stryker was the first mech the telepath had ever met who, somehow in his chaos and inner anger and overall madness, could interest him passed a simple wish to analyze his processor for its abnormalities. For some reason he found the mech's presence calming, almost soothing. Maybe it was due to how polar-opposite they were; that was what the twins had said.

And since when were Frenzy and Rumble such love gurus, anyway?

Yet the TIC found himself agreeing that their opposite personalities did not clash as one might have expected. Soundwave himself was very reserved, very quiet and was always self-assured. He never showed his anger, instead keeping it locked up tight inside, where he and the rest of the world could pretend it didn't exist. He planned ahead and he planned thoroughly, accounting for each and every possible outcome and taking the logical course of action. Primus, he sounded like the Autobot's fragging tactician!

And as for Stryker, he was loud and boisterous and obnoxious, though Soundwave suspected some of this was simply to annoy the Decepticons because they were his sole source of entertainment. But he was reckless and had proved time and again through his half-baked escape attempts that he didn't put much thought into planning passed a rough outline that looked like it _could_ work.

His largest difference from the Decepticon was, it had to be admitted, his emotions. Stryker metaphorically bared his spark for all to see. He had a terrible time keeping his feelings under wraps. It was obvious when he was upset, or scared, and most of all when he was angry. Really, it was shocking he could do any undercover work at all. If Soundwave had to guess purely from what he had witnessed, Stryker would be a terrible field operative. And yet he couldn't imagine the mech working a desk job.

So where did the quirky Autobot fit, then?

_With me,_ Soundwave's mutinous spark whispered. _He's mine, he belongs with me._

Soundwave told his spark to shut up and stop giving him that deliciously warm tingly feeling that he had no right having. He had no claim on Stryker and he had no reason to have one. Stryker had not even been on his radar until a few deca-orns ago, and suddenly he had a full-blown obsession with the mech.

Why was that? Soundwave couldn't fathom it, and that terrified him. What was it that made this mech, out of any other he had ever met before, out of all the mindscapes he had experienced before, what made this one so special?

He heard a groan from in front of him, a long drawn-out moan that was less exciting and more...whining. _Holy Primus I fell for a whiner!_

Fall? Who fell? Fell where? Soundwave didn't fall; no, no, he was standing up right and at attention and that was the way he liked it, thank you very much.

The apparently whiny mech twitched on the berth, digits fidgeting uncomfortably while his processor remained firmly locked in recharge. Soundwave couldn't help a tiny gasp-like exhale of a laugh when the Autobot squeaked in his unconsciousness and stuck out his glossa a bit. That was...unexpected, and cuter than he would admit. How was it that the mech, his sworn enemy, kept unintentionally endearing himself to him?

"Don't touch the chandelier," he heard the mech murmur. "It eats people." With a grunt the mech then flopped over onto his front, faceplates flush against the berth in what couldn't have been a comfortable position.

With the slightest of chuckles Soundwave settled on the side of the berth, continuing to watch Stryker intently. When he showed no signs of onlining, Soundwave easily slipped into the mech's consciousness.

It was much brighter than it had been when Soundwave had last entered it. There was a visible sky this time, painted with innumerable twinkling stars forming constellations that didn't exist. The landscape was of a place that didn't exist, but Soundwave could tell that it was based on the Helix Gardens, given the large blue translucent delicate Praxian crystals that appeared all over the landscape, simply shooting from the ground or suspended in midair, depending on Stryker's whim.

The stream of memories was a soft, crystalline brook, sparkling softly in the starlight as memories surfaced, these ones happier, less dark and brooding and more randomly appearing images of whatever struck Stryker's fancy at the moment. Gone was the chaotic rush of thought from Soundwave's last visit.

Stryker himself was sitting atop a particularly big crystal staring at the sky. One servo was raised, a digit extended, and he seemed to be drawing in the sky. When Soundwave looked up he realized just who had been creating the constellations; they were apparently of much more conscious thought than previously believed, if the large smiley face now staring down at him meant anything.

"Don't look! I'm not done yet." Soundwave turned back to Stryker, who was staring in heavy concentration at his "masterpiece." He was faintly surprised that the Autobot had noticed his presence so quickly, but shrugged it off and instead chose to watch the mech while he worked, drawing imaginary lines in the sky between nonexistent stars.

"Annnndddd...done!"

Glancing at the sky again, Soundwave saw that the smiley face was a caricature of the Autobot symbol, and it was...sticking its glossa out at him? Oh, and that wink was certainly not in his imagination.

"It's...interesting." Soundwave scrambled for a somewhat complimentary statement for the "artwork."

"Shut your mouth! You don't know squat from art!" the Autobot growled with narrowed optics.

Soundwave stared in unadulterated shock, unsure as to what had set off the unexpected mood swing. "Statement: neither do you..."

Stryker's optics were wide as he dove off of his crystal and scampered up to Soundwave, effectively _looming_ over him.

It was then for the first time that Soundwave realized just how much taller than him Stryker was. Soundwave was imposing by nature, and his breadth and build due to his model as a cassette carrier, added to his stoicism, often made him seem larger and more commanding. But Stryker had a bulky, more durable frame added to superior height, meaning that, when he tried, he could loom quite strikingly.

And his loom was of a professional Megatron caliber.

"Oh, we're an expert now?" Stryker leaned over Soundwave, and for the first time in his life Soundwave felt small. He didn't enjoy the sensation. "We're more cultured than the little plebian, so automatically we're better than him and must know more?"

"Soundwave: confused. Stryker's attitude: unexpected and uncalled for." In his bemusement Soundwave reverted to his normal speech pattern, his safeguard, his protection from the outside world. But he couldn't prevent his confusion from seeping into his tone.

It was then that he heard it, the soft tinkling sound of the crystals. But the sound became louder and louder, a shriek of scraping substances that grated on his senses. The crystals of the landscape began to vibrate rapidly and cracked, shattering, chunks falling away and crashing through the ground and disappearing impossibly, dragging away the pieces of the ground that they hit, leaving inky, wavering holes of darkness in their wake.

The stream froze over, solidifying on horrid images that Soundwave had to turn away from, lest they bring up memories of his own. The sky darkened evermore in a way that shouldn't have been possible, the caricature mutating into a horrible, terrifying, spark-wrenching facade of the original.

The mindscape was falling apart, imploding, cannibalizing itself. And it was going to try to take Stryker down with it.

Soundwave struggled to put together how this had happened. Stryker had been doing so well! Aside from his numerous escape attempts, he had been acclimating quite well. He made jokes, he laughed, he made a general nuisance of himself. His mindscape had been wonderful! What had gone wrong?

Everything, Soundwave realized with a jolt. Everything had gone wrong, had _been_ wrong; it had been that way the whole time!

But this here, this was why Stryker was in Ops. He had the acting skills of a professional, the natural ability to hide the most crucial pieces of himself from the outside world.

Even when he was falling apart.

Stryker had been going downhill ever since their first meeting in his mindscape, when it had been so dark, so...unhinged. It had never recovered. No, Stryker had just perfected his perfectly happy outward demeanor to the point that he could fool Soundwave, maybe even fool himself, into believing that he truly was _okay_.

"Stryker: needs to calm down!" he said loudly through gritted denta, servos scrabbling to grab the mech's shoulders and grip them tightly as a chunk of crystal shot through the ground next to them, further puncturing the mindscape.

"Calm down from what? It's all gone, it's gone!" the mech shrieked, trying to wrench himself from Soundwave's grasp as he pressed his servos against his optics, as if to relieve some phantom pressure. The pressure that was building as the mindscape prepared to implode.

Soundwave could not allow that to happen. The mindscape was Stryker, personified. If it left...so would he.

"What is gone?" The TIC dropped his speech pattern, if only for time's sake, and because, slaggit, he was getting anxious here! This was _not_ how he had planned things! Stryker was supposed to be done with the mental breakdowns!

"_Everything_! It's all gone! All of it!"

Soundwave grabbed the mech's flailing servos, holding them tightly within his own as he leaned in closer, hissing, "_What_, exactly, is gone?"

"Everything," Stryker whispered. "Everything. My friends, my boss, my job, my life...everything I've ever done is..._over_. It's done. _I'm _done."

The mindscape was vibrating now, the ground quaking where it still existed. Soundwave ignored that, holding fast to the quivering Autobot.

It was true that Stryker's previous life was gone. He couldn't do undercover work, and if Soundwave got his way he wouldn't be rejoining the Autobots. But that didn't mean that his life was _over_. It was more like a chapter had been completed, and a new one was beginning. Yes, that was it! Now if only he could get that across to Stryker.

"Your life is not over," he said firmly, visor boring into the mech's own optics, his stare as meaningful as he could possibly make it. It vaguely occurred to him that this felt like one of those bad mid-orn shows that his twins liked to watch, those overly dramatic ones. He swept aside that idea scornfully. It wasn't anything like those, because he wasn't in love with Stryker. Of course not.

"Your life is not over," he repeated. Finally Stryker looked at him, deep blue optics glossed over, for the most part unseeing. Well, Soundwave would just have to _make_ him see then. "Jazz's Boys may no longer function, yet all of its components are alive. The minibots are alive, and so are you. You are alive. You _are not_ done."

Stryker stared at him, optics swirling with confusion. He didn't even notice when Soundwave shoved him to the side to keep him from being struck with a falling crystal, servos still ensconced in the Decepticon's.

"But...I have nothing left. I can't do anything else! I'm useless uneducated street trash! Primus, you should've just left me to die in that building collapse!"

Soundwave snarled, leaning forwards and tilting his helm back until the pair's olfactory sensors were almost touching, allowing Stryker to see dimly through his visor to his optics so he could understand just how deadly serious Soundwave was right now.

"Leaving you to die would have been a waste of a good soldier and operative. Not only that, but it would have been wrong."

"Wrong?" Stryker sneered. "You're a Decepticon; what the slag do _you_ know about right or wrong?"

The telepath growled and shoved Stryker back a bit, taking a step forward as he did to maintain their minimal distance. "I know that a mech in his prime shouldn't die simply because he feels as if there's no hope. I know that nobody should ever be allowed to take their own life, to get to the point where they wish to have their life taken. And I know that you are worth a fragging lot more than a simple quiet deactivation in a Primus-slagged collapse!"

Stryker was silent, astonished by the cursing from the usually stoic mech. The mindscape stilled with him, all falling eerily silent, crystals freezing midair in their falls, as if everything was waiting for this one response, was riding on it.

"Then...then how should I die?" he asked in a strangled voice, struggling to sound amused and failing, instead producing a wavering, sad half-smile.

Soundwave took the question for what it was: a last show of sanity, the response of which would make or break the mech in front of him. Had he been sadistic or uncaring, he could answer swiftly, nonchalantly about a battlefield and dying in obscurity. But that wasn't the kind of mech Soundwave was.

"Ideally, of old age millions of vorns from now, tucked away in a safe home in a warless world."

"Sounds nice," Stryker mumbled. His optics, which had been downcast since his question, flickered up again, and he stared intently at Soundwave's close visor. "Where would you be, then? Ideally."

The Decepticon was silent for a long moment, cataloguing things around him to calm himself. The Autobot had stopped shaking now, but his optics were anxious. His servos were warm in Soundwave's own. The air was still, silent, waiting with baited breath for his answer.

"My cassettes would be safe," he decided at last. "And none of us would be separated. And...ideally?"

Stryker smiled a bit, tiny, but a real one. "Yeah, I think we're doing the ideals here."

"Ideally..." he trailed off for a long moment before gathering enough courage to whisper those fateful words that would change everything for them. That would turn the relationship between captor and captive into...possibly, something more.

"Ideally, I would be with you."

The crystals glittered in the air, the stars sparkled in the sky, and all was silent.

* * *

**So what do you think? Sappy, boring, too-jumpy, weird, my-Lord-this-is-so-stereotypical-and-disgusting-of-a-Canon/OC-romance? All of the above? Tell me in a review!**


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